


Winding Roads, Blinding Lights

by grumpyphoenix



Series: Various Bangs [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Abusive John Winchester, Abusive Relationships, All pairings except Dean/Cas are referenced or implied, Cop!Dean, Dean/Cas Pinefest 2018, I have a cunning plan, Implied Cas/Jimmy/Dean threesome, M/M, Mild Serial Killer, Mutual Pining, Non underage Teenage sex, Recreational Drug Use, Referenced Suicide Attempt, Suicidal Dean, artist!castiel, non hunting AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-23
Updated: 2018-03-23
Packaged: 2019-04-06 12:44:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14057268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grumpyphoenix/pseuds/grumpyphoenix
Summary: As he watches the love of his life get married, Dean tries to accept that Castiel has moved on, and tries to do the same. Then an incident during a Christmas party gives him the first glimpse into the darkness of his lost love’s life, and perhaps a way to save both of them.





	Winding Roads, Blinding Lights

**Author's Note:**

> Art by [thevioletcaptain](http://thevioletcaptain.tumblr.com/) aka [imogenbynight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/imogenbynight/), who worked overtime to make sure I had these amazing pictures by posting day!!
> 
> Thank you to [Lotrspnfangirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lotrspnfangirl) for being a wonderful and patient editor. Thank you for ruthlessly trimming all the 'ands'.

Winding Roads, Blinding Lights

  


Dean watches Castiel dance with his new husband Michael, the colored lights bathing them in rich hues of green and blue. He taps his fingers on the side of his glass; it’s empty and so is his heart. God, this song is awful. He would’ve thought Castiel would, at the very least, had enough taste to pick a song that was good while he eviscerated his heart.

There’s a nudge at his shoulder, and he’s being offered another glass of wine. “You’re being a complete dumbass You know that, right?”

Dean puts the glass on the table. The reflections of the lights in the pale liquid are too pretty to bear, so he looks away. “Jimmy, fuck off, okay?”

Jimmy laughs. “No, I don’t think so. See, _I_ think that my chances of getting laid tonight have doubled.”

Dean winces, drinking the entire glass of wine in one long, uninterrupted series of gulps. He puts the glass back carefully, but he really just wants to smash it on the table.

“I’m not that pathetic,” he grumbles.

Jimmy clicks his tongue and leans over so his lips are against Dean’s ear. Pitching his voice lower, he whispers in a disturbingly familiar tone, “Yes you are, Dean. Fuck me. I’ll even do his voice.”

Dean grabs a bottle of wine from the bar along the way, ignoring the protests of the bartender. One arm draped over Jimmy’s shoulder, he turns his back on Castiel and his husband kissing on the dance floor. And if Castiel’s back seems rigid and tense, that’s nobody’s business but his own.

 

++

 

Dean looks into his coffee cup skeptically. It smells like pancakes; his brother’s obsession with trying new coffee flavors was getting out of hand. His head throbs. Maybe he can hold out until they get to the station and drink bad coffee there instead of… whatever this is. Leaning his head against the passenger side window, he wishes his brother would be mysteriously struck mute. At least for the length of the car ride. He cracks an eye hopefully to look over at him. Alas, still yapping away.

“Dean!” Sam complains, hand smacking the steering wheel for effect. “You’re not even listening to me. How much did you drink last night anyway?”

Fuck, he’s going to have to drink the shitty pancake coffee; it’s way too early for this.  
  
“Enough,” he grumbles, sipping the damn Maple Nut Crunch latte or whatever. “I drank enough.”

Sam purses his lips together. “Well, Castiel was asking about you. Not that I can’t figure out where you went. You two aren’t very subtle.” Sam paused, tapping his fingers on the wheel restlessly before adding, “You know Jimmy is an asshole, right?”

Dean considers flinging the horrible coffee out the window, but Sam would definitely write him a ticket for littering. He puts it in the cup holder instead and presses his cheek and temple against the deliciously cold window, closing his eyes instead of answering.

He can still see those beautiful blue eyes, and hear that deep voice, that low growl, begging him to fuck him _harder, please, harder._ Jimmy had delivered on his promise and had left afterwards with a satisfied smirk on his face. Like always. Yes, Sam, he knows Jimmy’s an asshole. Jimmy has _been_ an asshole, ever since the summer before senior year of high school when he pretended to be Castiel and had Dean up against The Roadhouse bathroom wall.

Since Castiel stopped talking to him a few years ago, Jimmy’s used his ingenuity and sharp insight to press at all of Dean’s weak spots, and Dean can’t stop him. Cas is supposed to be his ‘friend’ now _,_ but it only makes it worse. For Dean. Jimmy does what he wants.

He bangs his head gently on the window.

Sam has run out of steam by the time they finally pull into the station, so Dean angles himself out of the car as fast as he can. There’s no way he wants to deal with the quiet, worried Sam any more than the loud, annoyed version. He knows he’s pathetic, he doesn’t need a reminder.

The Sheriff’s Office is loud. It’s not that there’s so much actual noise as it simply _feels_ loud, from the checkered linoleum floors to the holding cells with snoring drunks to the crisp beam of sun coming in the un-shuttered windows. Even the damn fluorescent lights were loud, a constant hum underneath everything else. Thankfully for Dean’s hangover, early Sunday morning is always slow; not much to deal with except letting the dudes stinking up the drunk tank out and finishing off everything they’d put off during the week. Garth and Charlie are doing just that, sitting at their desks doing paperwork. Charlie has a catapult made out of Popsicle sticks, and she launches a paperclip at Garth who catches it without looking, adding it to a chain of them he has draped around a tiny Christmas tree on his desk. Jody’s office door is open, but she isn’t in it. Dean heads for the break room.

The smell of very bad, possibly burnt, coffee wafts from the crack beneath the door. It’s delightful. Jody is here, poring over the paper with a cup in one hand. Dean takes Sam’s coffee mug from the cabinet and pours coffee in it to the brim. He thuds into a seat next to her, closing his eyes and drinking the scalding bitter liquid, silently thanking the caffeine gods for the bounty. He doesn’t notice the eyebrow Jody is quirking his way until he’s most of the way done with it. She is standing over him, the newspaper rolled up in one hand, fresh cup of joe in the other. Blearily, he wonders if she was talking to him.

“You gonna be okay today, Winchester?” she asks in a clipped tone.

He nods, giving her thumbs up before getting up and pouring the last of the caffeine into his mug. Snorting, she leaves with her paper, looking unconvinced. Dean slouches along to his desk and settles in, closing his eyes and leaning back in his chair.

“Dean!” Charlie pokes him until he’s forced to open his eyes and look at her. “Call came in. It’s Daniel DeWinter again. Are you up for this, or should Sam and I go?”

This was all he needed this morning. “No, it’s fine, we can take it.” He leverages himself up out of his chair. “There are no good donuts here anyhow. C’mon, Garth, we can grab some on the way back.”

Garth’s goofy grin makes him want to punch him in the nose.

 

+++

 

Due to his extremely hungover state, Garth refuses to let him drive, and there is no budging him, even when Dean tries to pull rank. So of course, this is how they now find themselves making a fifteen minute trip last at least twenty-five.

“Dude, at this rate we’ll get there tomorrow! You know, the speed limit out in the sticks is fifty-five. You _can_ go a little faster. ”

Garth laughs his laugh; that one of a kind, special Garth laugh. It brightens Dean’s day every time he hears it, even when he’s dedicated to being sullen. He grins in spite of himself and looks out the window to try to hide it.

“Good one, Sergeant. What has you so low today anyway? I haven’t seen you this down in forever.” Garth reaches over and pats Dean’s shoulder. “Does someone need a hug?”

Dean shrugs him off. “Both hands on the wheel, Deputy. Just drank too much at Castiel’s wedding, that’s all. Plus, Sam was being a huge girl this morning about me leaving early.”

Garth’s side eyes him. “That seems kind of rude, doesn’t it? I mean, Castiel’s your best friend.”

The radio crackles, interrupting Dean’s angry retort. He reaches over to fiddle with it with a curse; some of the wires have started to fray, making it short. Someday the county would have to cough up the money to replace equipment, unfortunately it wasn’t this day, or any in the near future. Garth whistles tunelessly through his teeth as he drives. Elvis. Always Elvis.

“So, what’s up with Mr. DeWinter anyhow? Didn’t you go to high school with him?” Garth muses. “Is that why we’re the ones that keep getting sent over there?”

Dean grunts a little, getting his electrical tape roll from the glove compartment. “Yeah, we went to school together. We were even kind of friends for a short bit. His family life wasn’t what you would call ideal.”

He rips off a long strip of the tape and begins wrapping wires as securely as possible. “Truth is, he was always kind of an asshole, and he’d go into these tempers, start beating on people. I was the only one who could calm him down, always. Fuck knows why. So when he goes off like this, I’m the one who gets called. If I’m not there, he gets arrested, usually. But his parents are stupidly rich, so we usually just let him go in a few hours after he’s calmed down.”

The radio stops making the ungodly noise. Dean sits back with a smile, twirling his finger and making the tape hula-hoop around it. “We can usually count on him getting royally fucked up at the Roadhouse and making a nuisance of himself this time of year. This early in the morning, he’s either still drunk or his head hurts, and he’s pissed about that. He used to run some kind of survivalist group up there, gathering weapons and making plans for the apocalypse. But, eventually he alienated even those guys, so all that’s left is his wife and daughter. Every now and then we get called up there when Fiona gets tired of seeing him beat her mom, but nothing ever sticks.”

Garth shakes his head and clicks his tongue against his teeth. “Why does she stay with him?”

“Daniel and Charlotte were always like this, even back in the day. There was never anyone else for either of them, but somehow they still hated each other.” Dean flings the tape back in the glove compartment and shuts it too hard, making it jam.

Growling in frustration, he leaves it alone, angrily shifting in his seat. “Love is stupid, Garth. That’s the real answer. Love is never worth it.”

 

++

 

Dean slams the SUV door shut and walks around the front to join his partner. “Well, that’s not something you see every day.”  
  
Garth grins. “Guess she had enough.”

“ASSHOLES, CUT ME DOWN!!” Daniel’s screams have a lunatic edge that make Dean wince. Garth shakes his head with a huge smile.

“No can do, Amigo!” Garth walks directly underneath Daniel as he hangs from his left foot on the enormous oak tree in the front yard. His upside down face is bright red, and he keeps screaming about his wife, about his daughter Fiona.

“Daniel, you know Charlotte wasn’t unfaithful to you, cut it out.” Dean scans the area looking for her. The trees this time of year are bare, but the former compound has gone to seed and the tangle of brush and trees make it hard to see much. Daniel tries to spit on him and Dean snorts, heading towards the house, leaving Garth with babysitting duty.

The door is wide open, letting the freezing air into the house. Dean doesn’t go all the way into the house, but from the first glance he can see that everything inside is wrecked. Daniel made most of the things in here by hand,Dean knew. But even when they’re physically at each other’s throats, they don’t destroy things the way the living room table has been splintered. In the background, he can hear Garth trying to be heard over the yelling.

“We have to wait for the fire department. Dude, you gotta calm down or you’ll pass out. Or throw up. Being as _I’m_ the one underneath you, that would suck. We have to pay to clean these uniforms ourselves, you know.”

“Who set the trap?” Dean murmurs, looking from the door to the tree. Garth shouts as Daniel successfully spits on the front of his uniform.

Dean comes down the porch steps, raising his voice to be heard. “Daniel, who set the trap?”

Daniel falls silent suddenly, glaring at him from two puffy eyes.

Dean looks up at the rope holding Daniel firmly to the tree. “And where is Charlotte? If she’d set it, she’d be on the porch laughing at you.”

Garth blinks. “You think Fiona did it? She’s only nine, Dean.”

“Nine, but the daughter of survivalists. She’s a hunter, Garth, just like her parents. Hell, she could out hunt half the good ol’ boys around here.” He scans the yard again, but carefully, methodically. A flash of movement over by an abandoned school bus catches his eye. Daniel’s group had meant to bury it and turn it into a bunker, but it was never finished. Building material surrounds it, some half rotted, all of it covered in vines. Despite this, he can clearly see a small face peering out at him.

“Fiona! Come on out, now! He can’t hurt you, Deputy Fitzgerald and I are both here.” Dean waited a moment, but no movement. He cleared his throat and tried again. “We just need to talk to you. What happened here? Where’s your mother?” Daniel growls, but Dean ignores him.

After a moment, Fiona creeps out from the door of the bus. She’s wearing next to nothing, and by the looks of her skinny legs, she’s been in that bus a long time. Her hair is entirely knots and brambles, the edge of her oversized t-shirt rides just above her knees, and something dark and brown is splattered across the front. Dean hopes to God that it is mud.

He shrugs out of his coat and holds it out, offering it to her. She comes forward far enough to snatch it from his grasp, but Daniel starts screaming in earnest, thrashing on his rope and threatening to kill her with his bare hands if she talks to Dean. Fiona runs back into the bus. With a shriek of metal, the bus door closes.

Dean whirls around, shooting his finger angrily into the air. “You shut up now, or I swear to god, I’ll cut the rope and let you break your neck!” With a snap, Daniel shuts his mouth, glaring with deranged eyes.

They try to coax Fiona out for the next half hour until the fire truck comes, to no avail. Benny himself is driving the truck. “I just had to see this.” He grins at Dean with a wink. As the rest of them set up, he fist bumps Garth, then drapes an arm over Dean’s shoulder companionably. Dean leans into the warmth.

“Charlotte finally had it, eh?” Benny scratches his beard as he watches his squad try to wrangle a squirming, raging Daniel down safely.

Dean shakes his head. “I don’t know, Benny. Something about this is really off. I haven’t seen her… usually with these things, they’re screaming at each other when we get here, or Charlotte is on the porch and Daniel is passed out. Fiona is in the bus over there, half dressed, and she looks spooked. I can’t get her out. I’m worried I’ll have to drag her out. It’s really fucking cold, I have no idea how long she’s been in there.”

Benny smiles his molasses sweet, slow smile, the one that makes the pit of Dean’s stomach drop to his groin. “Why, all you need is some charm, Dean. Let me help the lady out.”

While Dean tries to sort out his stammering, Benny gets a blanket from the ambulance and strolls over to the bus.

Garth sidles over. “I’m pretty sure he likes you, Dean. You should take him to dinner tonight, and then take him home.”

There is too much to track here and he’s on edge. “Garth, don’t. I can’t be in a relationship right now.”

Daniel is down from the tree. He staggers and sits down on the ground in the enormous weeds growing around it. The EMT tries to get him to stand, but he ignores the guy. Daniel starts fumbling around in the plants, looking for something.

Garth leans against their SUV. “Aww, no, don’t say that. Believe in love. Or at least, believe in the possibility of love. Who knows, maybe you’ll get married to him someday.”

Dean murmurs distractedly, “Love is a joke, Garth.”

Something is in the weeds. The dark shape of it is suddenly clear to Dean, and he starts towards the tree at a frantic run. He can hear Garth react a hair after he does, running behind him.

Benny is coming back with Fiona, wrapped in the blanket, Dean’s jacket dangling around her legs. She’s watching her father with wide eyes, shrinking back against Benny. Dean can see it in slow motion almost, as Daniel pulls the shotgun out of the weeds. He shoots the EMT who is trying to manhandle him over to the ambulance, and then points it at his daughter. Benny picks her up and turns away, but he is still in the line of fire --

_Fuck --_

Dean steps in front of the blast. As he falls, he thinks absently that the sky is the color of Castiel’s eyes.

 

+++

 

Benny is the first person to actually visit him in the hospital. Sam came to the door of his room, glared at him, and then left. Next, Jody called and told him that he was a moron. Garth sent him a series of text messages that were completely in emoji. Dean is still not sure what apple, frowny face, monkey, rainbow have to do with anything.

But Benny, Benny actually visits, big grin on his handsome face. Benny brings him flowers, a riotous mix of colors and smells that makes his head ache a little. Dean isn’t sure how to feel about that, but there they are, sitting in the vase. He stays for a long time, laughing and joking with Dean, and somewhere in all of that, Dean agrees to a date with him once he is out of the hospital.

It won’t be too long. The news is full of the heroic cop who tackled a shotgun-wielding maniac and saved his partner, a firefighter, and a little girl from certain death. Garth even has a medal. Dean has what is probably going to be a gnarly scar on his shoulder and a lot of pissed off friends. The fact that Garth actually saved his life hasn’t escaped him, and he isn’t sure at all how he feels about that either. He files the flowers and the near miss together and tries not to think about either of them.

He instead spends most of his time staring at his phone. Castiel has plastered pictures of his honeymoon all over Facebook. He looks tense, but he has a smile on his face in every picture. They all look posed, like most of his facebook pictures lately. Michael looks douche-y, but happy. Michael deserves a punch in the eye instead of that smile, but fine. Mostly to be obnoxious, Dean posts every hour about the hospital, locking all his posts so Cas can’t see them. He rates the nurses from least sassy to sassiest. He posts pictures of his pudding. He writes haikus about how much shotgun blasts hurt and how amazing his pain medication is. Charlie responds to every post with the angry face but Garth at least seems to think it’s hilarious.

Sam comes into the room the second day. He stands in the doorway, fidgeting.

“You going to come in or just hold up the wall all day?” Dean is poking his jello unenthusiastically with a spoon, watching it wobble. “You know, if you got me toothpicks, I could probably build a jello house with this…”

Sam darts into the room and practically lands on his bed, crushing him with a huge hug. “You stupid fucking asshole,” he grumbles into Dean’s good shoulder. “What the fuck were you thinking?”

Dean grunts, trying to push him off, and makes dramatic choking noises until Sam lets up. “I was thinking that fucking Daniel was going to shoot his kid and Benny. What I’d really like to know is what was going on there. No one has told me anything.”

Sam drags over a chair and sits excessively close to the bed. Dean wrinkles his brow, but either Sam doesn’t notice or doesn’t give a shit.

“Daniel woke up that morning, drank way too much gin, and then shot his wife in the face while she was making breakfast. Fiona ran, and in a genius move, set up that snare. He’s not sorry about it either, he keeps bragging about it. They’re treating Fiona downstairs, actually. She is not doing great, though... she still won’t say a word.”

Dean scrubs his hand over his face. “Shit, we were….” He grabs at his hair with his hands, ignoring the screaming from his shoulder, and pulls.

Alarmed, Sam grabs at them and pulls Dean’s arms down to the bed. “What the hell, Dean?”

“Laughing. We were laughing! We thought him hanging upside down was _funny,_ Sam. She’s in the bus, scared for her life, and we…” He smacks his hand against the rail of his bed angrily. Pain spikes up his injured arm and he growls.

Sam catches his hand before he can do it again. “Stop, Dean, stop. It was a shit situation all around, and you didn’t know! No, stop. Come on now,” Sam says aggressively when Dean opens his mouth to argue, “you’ll aggravate the wound and then I have to spend more time as Garth’s partner, listening to him tell me about Marmaduke’s adventures in the Sunday paper.”

Dean snorts, and so does Sam, and they share a short laugh. Dean finally relaxes back against the bed.

Neither man says anything for a long time. Sam looks down at his hands, picking at the sheet and compulsively clearing his throat. Dean just watches him, waiting for the inevitable.

“Dean, I just have to know. Was this about Cas? I mean, you could have shot Daniel, or tackled him like Garth did. This… this isn’t…” he trails off into uncomfortable silence.

Dean looks at the stupid fucking flowers Benny brought him and sighs. “No. Sam, no, I just wasn’t thinking. I promise. I’m over it, really. Look, a handsome firefighter brought me flowers. We’re going on a date as soon as I get out of here.” He makes himself smile and pokes Sam repeatedly in the shoulder until he looks up.

“Sam, I didn’t try to kill myself.” He squeezes Sam’s shoulder.

“Are you sure?” Sam looks at him, his puppy dog eyes entirely too sharp and searching for Dean’s comfort.

“Yes, Sam,” Dean lies, “I’m fine. This was just a crap decision, not a bid to die on the job.”

Whatever he sees in Dean’s face apparently satisfies him, because he smiles that damn soft Sam smile that never fails to get Dean to do whatever thing it is he wants. Dean lets out his breath.

“Well, okay. Rest up, Dean. I’ll come get you when they discharge you and drive you home.” Sam leans over and honest-to-God fluffs his pillow. Dean rolls his eyes.

Sam grabs his coat and smiles at him again, with what Dean assumes is supposed to be a supportive look on his way out. When he’s gone, the air is soft and still. Dean presses the button for pain medication and leans back. He quietly gazes at the flowers while he rubs the old savage scars on his wrist.

 

++

 

Discharge day.

Nothing in heaven or earth could make him wait for Sam, and somewhere along the way someone, probably Garth, brought clothing for him to change into, so he doesn’t _need_ to wait. He pushes the doctors and nurses hard until they discharge him early just to get him out of their hair, and he simply walks out of the hospital. Garth hadn’t brought him a coat, though, so he hunches in on himself as he crunches through powdery snow. He welcomes the cold. It helps him think. He has an incredibly long walk to the house to do it.

He has to break into his own house because Charlie isn’t there, but he isn’t going to wait for his brother to come find him, and he’s begun to chatter so hard that he is honestly afraid he’s going to chip a tooth. He forces the back door, wincing a little at the tongue-lashing the memory of his father is giving him right now for breaking part of the house. Fuck, it’s cold. He gives the mental finger to his father’s ghost, and stomps into the mudroom behind the kitchen, kicking off boots.

The house is warm, but dark, and he leaves it that way. He heads through it with a purpose, ignoring the shadows in the kitchen, navigating through the random crap on the floor in the living room, and weaving through the books left on the staircase. He stumbles down the hall to the bathroom, shivering and cursing. Weak winter light filters through the leaded window, throwing the giant claw foot tub into relief. The sight makes him pause and catch his breath painfully, a shadowy memory making the scars on his wrists throb.

No, no, he’s shivering, he’s freezing. Not right now, he can’t think about this now.

So instead, he pushes the plug into the drain and begins to fill it. His clothes crumple to the floor in a pile, the ice crusted on the cuffs of his jeans melting into a cold puddle on the old black and white hexagon floor tile. He grabs some towels and spreads them around before struggling with his completely wet socks.

The water in the tub starts to steam and he lowers himself into it, making yelping noises as his freezing skin touches the heat. Then slowly he starts to relax. Here, more than anywhere else, he feels centered. No noise intrudes except the _drip-drip-drip_ of the faucet.

Maybe he can try dating Benny... Cas moved on, why shouldn’t he? Benny is a good guy, and sexy in a cuddly, muscle bound, bear kind of way. Who knows, maybe he’s just as smart as Cas, just as interesting. Cas isn’t an option anymore, and Benny is available. Plus, Benny smells good.

This will be fine, he can move on. He can stop calling Jimmy in the middle of the night. Think how impressed his therapist will be. He closes his eyes, taking deep breaths, using the noise of the dripping water as a focus to relax, to calm his mind and his body. His mind starts to drift a little, pleasantly high on the heat and the quiet.

Then his cell phone starts ringing. He cracks an eye and peers over the edge of the tub. He can see the screen glowing through the pocket of his jeans, and he is tempted to ignore it. It could be his brother, which is not an optimal thing. Sam will be annoyed as shit that Dean stood him up and then walked home in the cold. It could be Benny, but Dean feels weird about answering it while he’s naked. Not that Benny could see him. Fuck it. He stretches and reaches and strains over the tub to snag his jeans with one finger and then pull it close, fishing through them for his phone. He presses the _accept_ button before he can see who is on the line because he’s trying not to drop the phone in the tub.

“Hello, Dean,” Cas says, and then Dean almost _does_ drop it in the tub.

They only stay on the phone for fifteen minutes. Cas is asking if he and Michael are invited to the annual Christmas party, and of course they are, but it rattles him to the core. There’s a strange timbre to Castiel’s voice and it destroys his calm. It’s probably all in his head. He sinks back into the hot water, trying to reclaim his peace, but it’s fled now. All he can do is close his eyes and think about Cas.

 

***

 

August just before senior year was painfully hot. Castiel and Dean had spent most of the past two months getting into trouble, but Cas’s eighteenth birthday party in the middle of August surpassed them both all by itself, bringing with it the beginning of a short burst of intense harassment by Gordon Walker. He’d spent most of the summer glaring at them both when they were in public together. Cas kept making cracks about him having a crush on Dean, loud enough so Walker could hear, which just pissed him off more. Dean wished he wouldn’t, but Cas was over the closet, and he wasn’t going to hide anymore. Luckily, nothing this kid said would get back to Dean’s father, John, but he would still gladly suffer anything to be with Cas, so it didn’t matter even if it had.

Jimmy organized their birthday party, which should really have been a warning to Dean. Cas was trouble, but Jimmy was worse, and he had his twin wrapped around his finger. When Jimmy set out to cause mayhem, Cas was always on board. Sometimes it included making people like Walker even angrier, which meant that Dean had an entire frustrating summer of being almost perpetually aroused with both brothers hanging off him. Dean just couldn’t say no to either of them, so when Jimmy took over the party planning, he knew it was with _maximum_ mayhem in mind. It took place in the woods and the beach next to the lake, with one huge bonfire on the sand and a few in barrels in the trees. Jimmy provided the drugs and Dean paid a friend of his father’s for a ton of booze.

When the red and blue lights started flashing, everyone started fleeing into the woods in all directions, heading towards cars parked along the trails. Dean lost track of Castiel when some kid hip checked him into a tree. Head spinning, more than a little high, he made it to the road, but cars were speeding past and he was so confused. That’s when Gordon pulled up in his expensive car and asked if Dean needed a ride.

The next few weeks were a disaster: Gordon was everywhere, leering at Dean, being crude and menacing. Dean stopped leaving the house or answering the phone, but neither twin would have it, and Castiel forced Sam to let him inside to see Dean one night when John was gone. He stayed the rest of it, holding Dean close as he confessed the things he was forced to do with Gordon the night he brought Dean to his own house instead of home.

Castiel waited weeks, until school began, to get a form of revenge.

 

Early in the morning, second week of school, Dean is sitting on the floor of the hallway listening to Echo and the Bunnymen on his headphones. His brother calls it ‘ancient emo music’, but he loves it, and anyway, it’s not _that_ old. The Led Zeppelin that’s on the other mixtape is older...

He should get going, Mr. Strickland is going to give him fucking detention again if he sees him, but he doesn’t have much longer to wait. Right on time, Castiel comes around the corner. He walks with an uncompromising intensity that means that most people just get out of his way rather than get knocked down. Without breaking stride, he holds out a hand and Dean catches it, hauling himself to his feet and falling into step beside him.

“Are we ready?” Cas asks him curtly, pulling the pair of his own headphones off his head. Dean briefly hears some Zeppelin, and feels warm all the way to his toes; Cas is listening to the mixtape.

“Yes, but… are we sure we want to do this? I mean, it’s no skin off my nose, they already know I’m an asshole, but you could get suspended, or arrest-” Castiel whirls on him, and he cuts off, swallowing hard.

“Dean. This _is_ a good idea, and that asshole needs to be taught a lesson. You won’t let us hurt him, and you won’t go to the police, so this will, I think, get the point across. We can steal his things. We can break into his home. We can do what we want. Trust me, it will scare him, but look like a prank to the cops.” Castiel’s eyes are transfixingly blue.

A voice inside his head yammers that he needs to look away, that Castiel can see what’s written on the inside of his heart through his eyes, but he doesn’t. He can’t. Instead, he nods obediently, and Cas nods once.

“Good. I don’t want to hear any more doubts. All for one.”

“One for all,” Dean murmurs. Castiel is already walking away, and Dean has to jog a bit to catch up.

They meet Sam at the side door outside the gym. He looks jittery and jazzed at the same time, bouncing on his toes with a manic gleam in his eyes. The huge bag over his shoulder makes clattering noises with every bounce. “I have the key. The morons keep an extra under a fake rock.”

Castiel nods. “Solid work. Let’s get the car.”

Cas claps Sam on the shoulder and the three of them head to the parking lot. Dean takes the bag from Sam; it’s almost as big as he is, and though he’s gamely trying to haul it, he’s struggling.

Acquiring the car is Dean’s job. Ever since he told Castiel about the skill sets his father had drilled into them over the years, he had answered a million questions about picking locks, stealing cars, and running cons. Even though John was now a bounty hunter, he had a solid criminal skill set to fall back on. And… now so did Dean and Sam.

Dean gets out the slim jim, quickly and deftly slipping it between the weather stripping and the window, delicately maneuvering it until the lock clicks. The asshole has a classic Dodge, which makes this a million times easier. He lies in the front seat to reach under the steering column and remove part of it, tugging the wires out. He uses his pocket knife to scrape away the insulation on some wires, then holds out his hand. Castiel’s warm, elegant fingers place the clip leads into it, and he shivers involuntarily as one of them lingers against his wrist for a second. That damn 80s movie marathon, that’s what started this. He, Sam, and Castiel watching _Real Genius_ … and now… this fucking plan.

They’re going to get caught, and arrested, and his father would be proud of him even though he’d probably have a fit about Castiel… Dean needs to stop thinking about that now, or he’s going to short out the battery and Cas will be pissed.

The car starts. He gets in the driver’s seat as the other two run around to the other side. They’re out of the parking lot before anyone catches on or even notices.

The Walkers have this huge mansion set back from the road, which is perfect, but Dean worries about cameras. Castiel has that covered though; he has a whole box of doctor’s exam gloves that he got from somewhere, and full face masks of cartoon characters. Sam grabs up the Bugs Bunny mask before Dean can, and Cas gets the Tasmanian Devil. That leaves Dean with Daffy. _Perfect_.

Dean starts sweating. He feels disconnected from the car, as if it’s driving itself up the driveway. It parks behind the house. Cas and Sam get out, dragging the tools out of the trunk, but Dean stays in the car staring at the house. The air under the mask is stuffy. He’s going to die. He can’t breathe, and he’s going to fucking die in Gordon’s shitty car, in his ridiculous driveway next to his enormous house. The house looms over the car. He claws at the mask, trying to take it off. If he could just breathe, everything would be okay.

A hand grabs the back of his neck and squeezes. Castiel purrs into  his ear, “Dean. You can breathe. You are with us, you are with _me_ , and nothing is going to hurt you. I won’t let it. Do you understand, me, Winchester? You belong to me, and no one will hurt you again.”

The world comes into sharp focus with one great inhalation. He thinks he makes some kind of embarrassing noise as he lets it out, but it doesn’t matter. He _can_ breathe. They are going to do this. He belongs to Castiel.

He gets out of the car.

A few hours later, they survey their work. The disassembled car is neatly laid out in order on the living room rug, marring the perfect white of the thick carpet.

Dean clears his throat. “Are we sure we have time?”

Castiel looks at Sam. “Bugs? Timetable?”

Sam opens his notebook and looks through it. “The Walkers are due to come back from their trip at eight. It is almost time for school to let out, and Charlie has agreed to distract Gordon for an hour. After that, he’ll see that his car is missing and call the police. It will take some time to talk to the police about everything, and by  then all his friends will have left, and he will need a ride home. Charlie’s agreed to linger behind and offer a ride. She’ll ‘break down’ along Old Forest Road. No buildings for miles, and they’ll have to walk to get help. So we have at least an hour and a half, at most five.”

Castiel looks up at Dean, his head tilted quizzically. Dean nods once. “If we make no mistakes, we can get it done. It won’t run, but it doesn’t have to.”

Castiel runs one finger along the back of Dean’s hand. “Then do not make mistakes.”

 

Charlie calls Dean’s house at eleven that night, making John yell distantly downstairs about ‘inconsiderate teenagers calling at all hours’. Her news though, is hilarious. Gordon got home after his parents, and Charlie was present for the amazing sight of Gordon’s car sitting in his living room. Sam had, for added effect, hooked up some lights and a smoke machine. The effect was stunning, and Charlie assures Dean that the police were trying hard not to smirk as they took everyone’s statements. Gordon was screaming about revenge, but wouldn’t tell the police who he thought had done the deed.

Satisfied and calm for the first time in almost a month, Dean listens to his headphones into the night, touching the back of his hand absently. Castiel’s lingering touch burns like a brand there.

 

***

 

Dean stands at the end of his driveway with his iPad in front of a crowd of his friends, frowning as he pokes at the tablet. He ignores pointed throat clearing, continuing to make choices deliberately. Finally, he seems to be done, looking up at the house and finger hovering over the tablet. And then he starts fiddling again, provoking a chorus of groaning. Dean tries and fails not to smirk.

“The more time you spend fucking with us, the less time you have for pie,” Benny says, close behind him.

“I was just finishing. Behold!” Dean flings his hands up dramatically, nearly smacking Benny in the head in the process.

The house blazes to life with moving Christmas lights, all carefully choreographed to music playing on hidden speakers. He doesn’t need to turn to see their faces, he already knows what expression they’ll have. It’s the same every year and he _loves it_. He turns anyway, watching the reflection of light on their faces eagerly. Every one of them seems to forget their troubles for a few minutes as they enjoy the display. Sam stands in the front of the crowd, his eyes wide, and Dean’s heart fills to the brim at the sight of his smile; that alone was worth every second of painstaking time to plan and execute.

He flicks his eyes over to Cas who is snuggled up against Michael with the same look in his eyes as Sam. Michael, on the other hand, looks sarcastic and vaguely bored. The flashes of red, green, and white light up against the gold metal bands on their intertwined hands. Impulsively, Dean grabs Benny and gives him a thorough kiss, ignoring snickering from the crowd and Sam coughing pointedly in the background.

“I declare the fifth annual Winchester house party to be open!” Charlie calls out from the open doorway of the house. She’s dressed in a shiny, faux-retro, fifties outfit, her hair carefully coiffed. Christmas lights blink on and off from within the hairdo. She holds a pie in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other.

“Well, stop gawking people! Come and get pie before everyone else shows! You have your pick this early!” She grins and turns back through the front door.

Dean laughs and pulls Benny along with him up the candy cane lane to the house, followed closely by Sam.

An hour later, Dean is making an alcohol run to the garage. Thank God for Charlie and her sense of organization... She’d started planning this way before Dean had even started thinking about it, and laying in supplies for months. They have enough to keep the party going until... well, forever, really. Dean suspects she’s hoping it will last through to the New Year’s Eve gaming extravaganza. The door to the downstairs hall is open so he doesn’t have to fumble with the knob to get back in, and he’s trying to figure out how to get more beer and wine back in one trip when he hears voices.

“--don’t understand your problem, Michael.” Castiel’s voice filters over the distant thumping of the upstairs music and the laughter in the downstairs gaming den. Dean freezes, his heart abruptly in his throat.

“Well, _darling_ , I am not sure how I could have been at all unclear.” Michael’s tone makes the hair on the back of Dean’s neck stand on end. He puts the wine bottle in his hand down carefully. On cat-quiet feet, he creeps closer to the door.

“This place is ridiculous, Dean is still a buffoon, and he has no sense of taste. Has he invited everyone in this god-forsaken place? I said we could make an appearance, that I would be polite because it was important to you. We have, I was, and now we are leaving.”

“The party is a long standing tradition here, so yes, the entire town is invited. Is this because of the picture? You were _there_ when it happened, so I’m not sure why you’re upset.”

Dean curses quietly; he can hear how drunk Castiel is, and drunk Castiel is belligerent. Drunk Castiel will not back down, and from the way Michael sounds, that isn’t a good thing at all.

“He has no right to have such a picture, let alone have it displayed! It is an insult to our marriage, to me. You were holding it, smiling at it. _Smiling,_ Castiel. He is not over you, and he is still in your life. You still want him.”

Dean can hear Michael push Castiel against the wall forcefully, driving the air out of his lungs in a hard exhalation. He starts for the door, and then stops himself just before he goes through. Castiel would actually murder him if he walked in on this right now. He starts pacing, his hands clenched into fists.

Michael’s voice gets softer, and Dean has to strain to hear it. “Don’t deny it. No, stop your lying mouth. You were nothing when you came to me, and you are nothing without me, Castiel. You asked to get married here, you asked to see your so called ‘friends’ at Christmas, and I will keep our bargain. But after the New Year, we are going home, and you will never see him again. Tell him, if you wish. Let him get the idea through his idiot head. Get it through _yours_.”

Castiel laughs. The sound is all wrong, mocking and challenging, and Dean starts for the door as fast as he can. Castiel is falling, trying to catch himself against the wall when he gets there. Michael smiles and arches an elegant eyebrow at Dean as he charges into the hallway. There’s blood on Castiel’s face, blood on Michael’s immaculately pressed shirt sleeve.

Dean makes the decision to catch Castiel and ease him down instead of killing Michael.

“There, the white knight appears. I will see you tomorrow morning, Castiel.” Michael wipes his hands on his suit jacket, straightening the non-existent wrinkles before turning. “Dean, what a charming party. Thank you so much for our invitation.” He turns and goes up the stairs calmly.

Castiel shifts against the wall. His low groan of pain stops Dean from following Michael up the stairs. Looking down, he can see blood smeared across Castiel’s face as he absently wipes his hand across it. He sinks to his knees next to Cas, trying to breathe, to calm down. His chest is so fucking tight, he’s going to die right here in this hallway. Abruptly he grabs for Castiel, checking him over with shaking hands.

“Jesus fuck, Cas, he could have broken your nose.” Dean tries wiping blood away, only managing to smear it worse, his eyesight blurred with tears.

Castiel irritably bats Dean’s hands away and won’t meet his eyes. Shaking, Dean sits next to him and rests his head against the wall. For a few minutes they say nothing, listening to the party exist around them. Dean wipes his eyes carefully. Fuck, he needs a beer. No, not a beer, what he needs is…

“Do you want to smoke?” Dean asks.

Castiel laughs a wild disjointed laugh. “Dean, oh my God. Yeah, okay. Where?”

“I keep it in my room.” Dean stands and offers a hand to Castiel, who just looks at him. “Oh grow up, we can either smoke there in private, or invite a group of people to the game room for it. I’m not trying to get into your pants.”

Castiel takes his hand and hauls himself up. “That’s a lie, Mr. Winchester. You are always trying to get into my pants.”

Dean shrugs. “What can I say? They fit.”

Castiel’s genuine grin nearly kills him.

Their first stop is the downstairs bathroom. Dean gets him a washcloth so he can clean the blood up; neither of them relishes answering any damn questions on the way upstairs. Dean leans his entire body against the door while Cas is inside, his eyes closed. Sam would lecture him for an entire hour over this if he knew. Hell, he’d never even let the two of them be alone together, and Charlie would sell Dean out to Sam over it in a heartbeat. He sighs, knowing he needs to smuggle Cas up the stairs carefully. They’re probably right about it, to be honest. Inviting Cas upstairs is not going to go well for him at all.

Cas will get out unscathed, but Dean’s going to feel it for a while. He could give a shit.

Dean’s room is in the attic, accessed by stairs at the very end of the top floor. Even after his father died, Dean hadn’t moved his room. It was comfortable, and the thought of sleeping in the room that had been his father’s gave him the willies. So Charlie took it when she moved in, and he stayed where he was at.

They sneak through the party that ranges up all three floors, and through the creepy little door that leads to his eerie, narrow stairs up to the attic. Dean isn’t sure why the stairs are so damn spooky, but they are, and he actually loves it. As Cas goes up the stairs, he locks the door. There’s no way he’s going to have Sam burst in here like he’s in a sitcom and find them smoking pot alone on the floor.

He comes up the landing to find Castiel browsing his record collection. “Charlie says I’m going to need to make one of the rooms into a music room or something,” Dean says. “She was going on about outgrowing the space and acting like a grownup and not a teenager. Whatever that means.”

Castiel scans the records carefully. “Never. You’ll manage to find room for all of them. The records are part of the space, like the guitar and the mattress on the floor and the beanbag chairs. Never change. Not… not for someone else. ”

He pulls a record out and crosses the room, dropping into the beanbag closest to Dean’s bed. He closes his eyes and just falls into it as if his strings were cut, leaving his arm raised with the album clutched in his hand. Dean takes it and looks at it. Swallowing a hard lump of nostalgia down, he puts the record on. Led Zeppelin fills the room as he digs out his stash and sits next to Cas to pack and light the pipe.

He takes a long hit and offers it and his lighter over to Castiel, poking him in the shin to get him to open his eyes. Cas puts the pipe down after he takes his turn, closing his eyes and leaning back against the beanbag.

Dean watches him. He has the luxury to look at Castiel, and so he does, feasting on the sight of him, the nearness of him. This close, he can smell the light cologne Cas always wears, and it makes him giddy. No, wait, that’s probably the pot.

Eyes still closed, Cas says quietly, “I can feel you staring at me, Winchester.”

“You’re beautiful, Cas. I can stare.” Dean gets hung up on how amazing his thighs look in the jeans he’s wearing, so he tries to look anywhere else, and ends up staring at the wedding band.

Cas shrugs with a small smile playing on the corners of his mouth. “This was a good idea, thank you. Your room was always so…” he trails off, biting his lip.

“Safe?” Dean asks quietly. “Do you mean safe? Cas... why are you with him? I thought you had moved on from that sack of shit, and then we get this wedding invitation….”

“Fuck. I knew you couldn’t shut up about this.” Cas climbs out of the beanbag unsteadily.

Dean stands up too, hands out in a placating gesture. “Please, I’m sorry, I won’t. I promise, just stay right now.”

He hesitates, wobbling a little. Dean should probably have warned him that it was strong stuff; Cas is likely not used to smoking anymore. All the more reason he shouldn’t go back to his husband tonight.

“Look, we can talk about anything else. Just… just stay for a while. I can leave the room if you want, you can listen to records by yourself or just sleep, or whatever.” He dares to reach out and touch Cas’ arm, and he isn’t immediately shaken off. Good sign.

“Fine, but, please, just don’t.” He plops down onto the beanbag gracelessly and closes his eyes again.

“So,” Dean asks carefully, “what picture was it, anyway?”

Cas smiles, and Dean knows. Cas says it anyway. “It was that ‘wedding’ we had in New Orleans. You in the top hat and shirtless tails, and I’m in --”

“The veil and the corset with garters,” Dean finishes. “You were sizzling in that outfit.”

He laughs and stretches. “Yes I was. Sweet Jenny picked it out for me, if you recall, and she always knew what showed off my ass the best.”

No wonder it set Michael off, Dean thinks as he watches Cas stretch. Fuck him, though, it was one of the best times of Dean’s life.

Castiel yawns and snuggles into the beanbag, curled up like a cat. “So, I heard a rumor that you stepped in front of a shotgun blast. Still a bastion of common sense, I see.”

Dean rubs his forehead hard and launches into the story, but by the time he’s done, Cas is asleep in the chair. He tucks his blanket over Cas and slips off his shoes. He slips his own off and curls up on the bed, positioned so he can see him.

When he wakes up, the light coming through the big round window tells him that it’s about five AM, and also that it’s snowing. The second thing he registers is that Cas is curled up next to him, and that they are both covered in the blanket. Inspection shows him to be dead to the world, so Dean bends around him into the big spoon, arm slung over his hips. Castiel smells so good, so familiar. Overwhelmed in sense memory, he watches the snow fall, gathering every second into his heart for later.

 

*****

 

The night of his eighteenth birthday is also the night of the winter dance. Dean brings Rhonda Hurley and Castiel brings Charlie. They get a group picture taken and Castiel and Dean stand next to each other, their arms slung over the other’s shoulders. The gym is decorated in silver and white, with what seems like a million silver paper snowflakes hanging from the ceiling. The colored lights make everyone look enchanted, and for one hysterical moment, Dean has fantasies of kissing Castiel in a silver snowstorm.

He dances with Rhonda and then Charlie, then all four of them dance in a circle, laughing. He leaves the group, laughing and breathless, just as “Wonderwall” comes on. Dean refuses to dance to this crap, and Rhonda leaves him be with a laugh.

Castiel finds Dean at the punch table. They drift to some chairs to drink punch and watch as Rhonda and Charlie slow-dance with each other.

“Girls can get away with that crap. You know if we did that, we’d get kicked out of the dance,” Dean says bitterly. Castiel laughs, leaning back and regarding him speculatively.

“Dean, do you want to dance?” he asks. His eyes are sharp and sparkling.

When all Dean can do is stammer, Castiel stands and offers his hand. Dean dazedly takes it. He can feel Castiel’s pulse at his fingertips. Castiel leads and Dean follows, floating out of his seat and onto the dance floor. Castiel slips his arms around Dean, pressing himself fully up against his body, urging him to do the same with a laugh at how scared stiff Dean is.

Nuzzling his face into the crook of Dean’s neck, he whispers, “Don’t waste this chance.”

Dean doesn’t. They dance, and the room melts away. He dares to nuzzle at Cas’ ear, smelling a hint of cologne, the smell of soap, the undefinable scent that is everything _Castiel_. Everyone else becomes a blur of background, mere noise and light. They are the only people here, dancing quietly together, their hearts beating in sync under a silver snowstorm.

Mr. Strickland shows up at the beginning of the next song and physically rips them apart when neither of them realizes he’s standing next to them and talking. His arm is like a vise as he marches them unceremoniously out of the building, depositing them in the parking lot with a warning not to come back into school tonight. It takes Dean a minute to register what has happened through the shock of the cold night air. The absence of Castiel’s heartbeat is devastating. Then the reality of what has happened begins to dawn on him.

“Oh my god, he’s going to call my father.” Dean feels as if he might throw up. The world lurches around him, he can’t see. Fuck, he’s going to die, his heart is going to stop here in the parking lot.

Castiel grabs Dean’s chin with a strong hand and forces his head up to look at him. “Look at me. You’re not going to die. If he tells your father, claim it was a prank. He’ll get angry, but it won’t be the same. Listen! Dean, stop it. We can fix this!”

Castiel hugs him hard, holding Dean as he shakes through it, carding his fingers through the hair at the nape of Dean’s neck until the storm passes.

“Take me to your car, Dean,” he says, lips brushing an earlobe.

The tone of his voice thrills through Dean. He fumbles for his keys, finds the car, and opens the door for Cas in a daze. The car seems to drive itself through the night, up to the town’s most clichéd movie-makeout spot. Dean is not sure if this was Castiel’s idea or his own, but it’s beautiful; the lights of town spread out below them, still colorful from Christmas in some places. He turns the lights off but keeps the car running for heat.

“No, turn it off,” Cas says with a wicked smile on his lips. “You have a blanket in the back, and we can keep each other warm.” Then he climbs over the seat into the back without effort, all bendy limbs and lithe wriggles.

Dean turns off the car but figures he can’t climb over the seat like that. When he gets outside, the full moon is rising, bathing the frozen woods behind him in light.

The backseat turns out to be freezing, but Cas pulls him lover-close, slinging one of his legs over Dean’s and pulling the blanket over them both. The inside of his suit pocket turns out to contain a joint and a lighter. Cas holds them up and raises his eyebrows at Dean.

“Hell yes,” Dean sighs. Cas lights it and takes a long pull.

The pungent smell fills the car and makes Dean sneeze. Cas’ smirk provokes him to snatch the joint away and take a deep hit of it, holding his breath for a long time and letting it out in a long slow cloud.

“I didn’t cough that time,” he says, triumphantly. Then he starts coughing wretchedly, tears coming to his eyes. Cas’ chuckling does not help.

“You suck,” Dean rasps.

Cas laughs harder, throwing his head back in full-fledged mirth. “You’re the one choking, not me. Give me that thing before you drop it on the floor with your flailing around.”

The coughing subsides eventually, and that delicious calming warmth takes over. He falls back into the seat, sinking into relaxation.

“Cas,” he closes his eyes and stretches some kinks out of his back, “what are you going to do after school?”

The back seat dips, jostling him as Cas leans back next to him, pressing his weight onto Dean. “You mean tomorrow?”

“No, I mean after we graduate. What are you going to do?”

Cas snorts. “What are you, my guidance counselor?”

“No, I just...” Dean shrugs. “Never mind.”

“Don’t get like that. I just never thought of it too much. I guess I should find an art school somewhere and learn how to make pretty pictures or something.”

Dean opens his eyes and stares at Cas. “Don’t be an asshole, Cas. Your art is so above that. You’re amazing, and you know it.”

Cas waves his hand around dismissively. “I’m good for high school. Honestly, I guess what I’d really like to do is travel around. See things. _Do_ things. The thought of being stuck in school for like, a hundred more years, is mortifying.”

Dean grins and steals the joint, putting it out and slipping it back into the jacket slung over the back of the front seat. He notes as he settles back down that the car is a lot less freezing than it had been. Cas is like a furnace next to him. “You should get a car and drive to places on Route 66. Those weird ass things are still around, you know. See the biggest ball of twine or whatever. You could go to New Orleans and paint in a shitty apartment.”

Cas watches him with an unreadable expression. He asks, “And what about you Mr. Winchester? What should we put on your file?”

Dean makes a face. “I don’t know. I just know whatever it is, it needs to be far away from Dad. I’m going to end up in the family business if I don’t. It’s okay for Sammy, Dad thinks he could _‘really make something of himself, that boy has smarts!’._  He thinks when Sam says he wants to be a lawyer that he means a defense lawyer. It isn’t, but by the time he finds that out it’ll be too late; probably when Sam puts him away for beating some poor asshole too hard on a bounty or for stealing a car. We have enough money from the trust my mom put together to send him to college, and he deserves it. On the other hand, I know he’ll… make me follow him around doing his work.

“I guess if I had a choice, I’d be a cop like Uncle Bobby. He helps people instead of hurting them. Well, I guess he did before he retired, but still. That would have the added bonus of really making my dad angry.” Cas is still staring at him and he blushes hard. “What? What did I say..?”

“Dean Winchester...” Cas leans into his space and brushes his lips along Dean’s earlobe, and _oh God,_ Dean gets hard instantly but holds as still as he can, afraid to move and break the spell.

Castiel gently tips Dean’s head to the side, lightly kissing and biting his neck. Dean gasps, running his fingers up through Cas’ hair and clenching a handful. When he gets to Dean’s collar, his beautiful, clever fingers pluck the buttons apart, exposing his collarbone. There he pauses, his teeth scraping lightly against skin.

“Dean Winchester,” Cas whispers again, raising shivery goose bumps up and down Dean’s body. He hangs suspended on the pause after his name, afraid and hopeful.

“I mean to have you, Winchester. Tell me no, and I will stop, but you smell amazing, and you taste…” he licks a long stripe up Dean’s neck, “ _Fuck_ , Dean, you taste like heaven. Let me.”

Dean can almost hear his heart pounding, breaking the ribs around it. All he can do is arch against Cas and grab at his shoulders. He’s wanted Castiel’s kiss on his skin forever; insomniac nights spent feverishly imagining and wanting.

Castiel grins a wide predator’s grin, the moonlight catching on him, changing his face into something primal. His voice is a deep purr. “I need to hear you, Dean. Tell me yes.”

Dean covers his face in his hands, hyperventilates into them, and whispers it between his fingers.

Cas shakes his head. “Oh no. I can’t hear you, my love. Say it louder.”

He tugs and Dean’s shirt falls away completely. One finger traces a pattern lightly on hair-raised skin, down his shoulders and his back, then up again to play with the sensitive spot on the nape of his neck.

Dean bucks his hips hard and Castiel laughs. “Words.” He hooks one finger underneath Dean’s waistband and Dean sucks in breath, letting it back out in one long hissed affirmation; “Yes, yesssss, _please_.”

It seems to be enough; Castiel pushes Dean backwards until he is lying against the seat, running fingers down his chest and stomach, eyes intense and possessive. He begins kissing, starting with one nipple, and then the other, licking and biting.

Dean unbuttons his pants impatiently, and the two of them work together to wriggle him out of both it and his boxers. Even though the car is no longer freezing, the seat is fucking cold under his bare ass, but he doesn’t care. He sets his sights on Castiel’s belt buckle and tries to undo it with clumsy impatient fingers.

“Cas,” he asks, forcing himself to slow down. He can do this, it’s just a buckle. “Remember when we were doing the… the car thing?”

For his part, Cas is watching Dean’s attempts to free his belt with hooded eyes. He raises an eyebrow.

Dean blushes. “Yes, okay, I know you remember. You said something to me, when I… when I was freaking out. You said…”

That smile is back, that special just-for-Dean predator smile, and it sends a thrill up through him. His hands shake and fall off the buckle.

“I said,” Cas unhooks his belt with one hand easily, and it’s the sexiest thing Dean’s ever seen; the expression in Cas’ eyes is threatening and wonderful. “I said you were mine. Do you want to be mine, Dean Winchester?”

All he can do is nod. Cas makes a clicking noise of disapproval with his tongue. “We’re going to have to work on your words, Mr. Winchester.”

Cas gets his pants off as easily as he slid over the front seat. Dean loves to watch him move, and the sight of him naked makes his mouth water and his heart pound. He wants to taste every inch, but doesn’t get the chance to try; he’s being pushed backwards again onto the cold seat, but that’s okay because Cas is on top of him, kissing him, running his hands over his body. His weight on top of Dean is comforting and exciting at the same time, which okay, it’s wonderful, but he needs so much more.

Castiel, pale and perfect in the moonlight, sits up to look down at Dean. His cock is hard and ready, curved beautifully up towards his stomach. Outside, snow starts to fall, whisper soft around their metal haven. It’s the first time he’s seemed uncertain since he started this, and Dean loves him for it so much it hurts. Sitting up partway, he pulls Cas into a long, slow wet kiss, and gently sinks back down onto the seat, bringing him along until they’re lying down again, bodies flush against each other. He can feel Cas’ hardness against his own, delicious and maddening. He rocks up against it, gasping into the kiss with the sudden thrill.

Cas breaks the kiss, nipping lightly at Dean’s lips, then along his jaw and down his neck. Breathing endearments onto skin, he starts to thrust his hips. His eyes flutter closed, and he seems to be loving it but…

“Wait, wait,” Dean pleads, and Cas pauses. Panting, he pulls back a little, looking into Dean’s eyes with a worried expression. Dean reaches between them and grasps Castiel’s cock and his own in his hand, fuck, that feels… “Now,” he whispers.

Cas makes a guttural sound and starts again. They’re both so slick in his hands, and it feels so fucking good. They find a fast, almost desperate rhythm together; Cas is kissing him, kissing his neck, whispering something he can’t understand under his breath into his skin.

Dean pants out broken words, trying to say it, not quite able to make a whole sentence. Fuck he’s so close, Castiel smells so fucking good… but he wants, he wants…

“Please,” he chokes, “Cas _please._ ” He hopes Cas can read his mind because he can’t speak anymore he just wants to be, he needs to be…

Castiel shudders with his entire body, biting Dean on the neck painfully hard. He growls, “Mine. You’re mine.”

Dean loses his mind, the pain spiking pleasure through him like a jolt of lightning. Cas takes over, holding him down and fucking against him, biting again and again. He bucks and arches against the weight on him, screaming as he comes, he can feel the wet warmth as Cas comes too, suddenly weeping into Dean’s shoulder.

He frees his -- horribly sticky -- hand and wraps both arms around Cas, holding him tightly. It takes a long time before he recovers, nuzzles his neck and laughs self-consciously. Dean kicks the blanket that’s been wadded up down near his feet until he flings it up in the air enough to get a hand on it and pulls it over them both. Then he wipes his hand on the back of it. _Bleagh_.

Dean holds Cas’ weight effortlessly, running his fingers through his dark hair, and watches the moonlight shine off it. Cas has settled now with his head resting on Dean, quietly breathing. The air is now warm with their breath, and the windows have mostly fogged up. The snow continues to pile up on the windshields, enclosing them in their privacy. They lie together, growing sleepy and comfortable in the quiet for what seems like ages. Cas shifts and Dean can almost hear his brain working. It becomes so distracting that he finally just breaks the silence.

“Steam is practically coming out of your ears. What’s on your mind?” Dean traces smiley faces on the back of his shoulder absently.

Languidly, Cas asks, “Dean, what if we just left?”

He blinks. “Well, okay, if you want to get home, I…” He starts to shift, but Cas puts a quieting hand on him.

“That’s not what I meant. You own this car, right? John isn’t like, technically lending it to you or anything?”

“Cas, what are you getting at? Yeah, I own it. I bought the damn thing from him with my own cash. Took forever, too, even in the condition he’d left her.” He pauses, looking down at the top of Cas’ head. “I pay my own insurance too, since you’re so interested.”

Castiel grins into Dean’s shoulder. “So testy. Dean, let’s just take your car and leave. I have some money saved up, and I can steal more from my parents on the way out. Which they won’t even notice, to be honest with you. We pack the car up, and we just go. We’re eighteen, school is bullshit, so let’s just leave. Let’s reach for the dream _now._ ”

Castiel sounds serious. Dean opens his mouth to say no, that the idea is ridiculous, that it’s reckless, and of course they can’t do anything of the sort. Then he closes it with a snap.

Why can’t they? Dean isn’t stupid, but he really hates high school. He’d graduate with almost straight C’s, and then go on to do some job that has no bearing on anything he did in school, or really anything he wanted out of life. Right now, it’s just a warehouse for he and Sammy so that John doesn’t have to deal with them. Sammy loves it; he wants things from it but… fuck, _Dean_ could totally just take off.

“There’s nothing stopping us,” he finishes his thought out loud, “we can do whatever we want.”

Cas shifts around so he’s straddling Dean, looking down into his face intently. “Yes, Dean, _yes_.”

Dean runs his hands over Castiel’s hips. “I won’t leave without talking to Sammy. We’ll have to do it when my Dad thinks we’re at school, or when he’s gone drinking at night. The last one will keep him from following us longer if he decides to.”

“Is it safe to leave Sam with him?” Cas asks seriously. “Should we just bring him with us?”

That makes Dean pause and catch his breath. He looks at Cas, _really looks_. Cas is serious about taking Sam, too, and it makes Dean’s eyes prickle a little with tears. They could take Sam and flee, and be a family together. But…

Dean shakes his head slowly. “My mom left us her family house, but it’s complicated. There’s an inheritance that Dad can use to live on, and a trust for Sam’s college. If John moves us around anymore, we are taken away from him, or he goes to jail, the money dries up. He’s mostly just stayed out of our lives, except for some notable exceptions.” He grimaces.

“He adores Sam. Anyhow, Uncle Bobby is around and he can step it without ruining anything if he has to. He has before. I don’t want to pull Sam out of school; he loves it, and he has plans. Very meticulous, very boring plans. He’ll be okay.” Dean searches Cas’ eyes for a moment before he asks, “What about Jimmy?”

Cas makes a face. “I’ll say goodbye and everything, but Jimmy and I are still the opposite of most twins. He’s an asshole, I love and trust him, but he’ll want nothing to do with this. I pretty much know that he’ll run interference long enough to give us a head start. Also, if I disappear, he can use it to get our parents to give him anything he wants.”

“We can send him postcards,” Dean suggests. “If he wants to join us, then he’ll know where we are.”

Cas smiles. He looks so happy, and Dean wants to spend his life making him look like that. Gently, he pulls him down to kiss, long, languid, and sweet. The snow continues to blanket the world in a shimmering icy blanket. Plans can wait; tonight all they have is each other.

 

****

 

Michael reneges on his promise and Castiel is gone before Christmas, leaving his scent lingering in the sheets of Dean’s bed. Sam is in Dean’s face almost all the time, and when he isn’t, Charlie has suddenly taken a huge interest in annoying him every time he takes a bath by knocking on the door every five minutes. It isn’t like he doesn’t get it, but he’s not going to do it again, he thinks. At least, not in the bathtub this time, and not like that; he still feels guilty for Charlie and Sam having to clean up… everything.

No, he’s fine. He’ll _be_ fine. Besides, Benny is still taking him on dates, and he’s hung like a horse, so that’s settled. It will be fine. He just has to get through Christmas.

He makes most of his effort at the Christmas Eve party at the Roadhouse. He laughs, and drinks, and plays darts. He has presents for everyone and even sings Karaoke Christmas songs with Garth. He’s not sure that he’s fooling Sam, but Charlie looks relaxed around him for the first time in months.

Christmas comes with a hangover. He’s put himself on schedule to work so that everyone else can be with people who give a damn. It’s quiet in the station, so he amuses himself by wrapping Charlie’s desk entirely in wrapping paper. He wraps everything: the computer, the stapler, the phone, each individual pen in her cup. The cup itself. Then he puts bows and curly ribbons on it all, complete with a tag: _From Santa._

He goes out on a call to break up a fight between in-laws in a family entirely clad in ugly sweaters with light up lights sewn into them. It goes so well that they all take a group picture with Dean and send him back to the station with a rock hard fruitcake. He rearranges the furniture in the break room. He watches stupid Christmas movies on TV there until he feels like he might cry, so he watches violent movies on Netflix instead. Fuck, Christmas is boring.

Garth kicks him out of the station just after dinnertime, ignoring all his protests. He goes home, sits quietly in the living room, and listens to the empty house settle all around him, wishing Charlie wasn’t at her girlfriend’s. Christmas movies are boring. Christmas dinner is boring. Fuck, Christmas takes forever to leave.

He goes to his room and smells Castiel. He thinks about calling Benny to see if he wants to come over, but he doesn’t want Benny’s smell to erase Castiel’s. He buries himself in the blanket he used, in the pillow he laid his head on. He needs to get rid of the smell, but he _can’t._

Eventually he calls Jimmy who comes over, all snake-smiles and knowing eyes. In the morning, Dean takes the bed sheets, the blankets, and the pillowcase out into the backyard and burns them in the barrel he uses to burn leaves.

 

++

 

New Year’s Eve crawls up on its belly, taking its sweet time. No one gets the holiday off; it’s all hands on deck, and unlike Christmas, they need every person. The Roadhouse’s New Year’s Eve bash turns into a full scale brawl before eleven o’clock. Sam, Dean, and Garth wade into it, hauling people out into the cold. They’ve always been kinder than the law strictly allows; they only arrest about five people that night. Charlie gets the dubious honor of being the one to book every surly drunk, Jodi watching with her “I am the Sheriff so I don’t need to touch the drunks” twinkle in her eye over a cup of coffee.

Midnight comes and goes. Dean is with Garth at midnight, and despite his teasing and wheedling, Dean does _not_ ring in the New Year in their SUV, making out with Garth instead of watching for drunks along the interstate.

Everyone meets for a quiet New Year’s drink the next night at the Roadhouse, buying each other drinks and throwing darts at the battered dartboard. He and Jimmy circle around each other all night. Dean can’t tear his eyes off Jimmy, and Jimmy fucking well knows it, sitting with a permanent half grin on his face where he’s perched at the bar, making passes at the bartender.

Late into the night, he notices that one, Sam has been keeping him busy on purpose with a seemingly unending game of darts, and two, Jimmy isn’t here. And neither is the bartender. It isn’t that he’s jealous, it isn’t like that with Jimmy, but Dean’s skin prickles. The bartender is new, no one knows him, and Dean feels… well he feels something. Something protective. He isn’t sure he wants to investigate that, but he just stops playing with Sam and heads towards the back of the building without a word. He can hear Sam calling to him irritably… Some kind of ‘blah blah, he’s a grownup, leave him alone, _Dean what are you doing!_ ’ but he tunes it out.

The Roadhouse has a history; years and years of being run by criminals and biker gangs have left their mark. Strata of graffiti line the walls in the bathrooms, and there is a long back hallway (also bedecked in dick jokes and spray-art) where the offices now are, ending in an escape-door; hard to find if you don’t know which way to turn, but it’s worked wonders for escaping the cops busting in the front forever. This is where the bartender took Jimmy - as if Jimmy didn’t already know it was there. It’s dark out there, dark and kind of sketchy, but he already knows that Jimmy doesn’t mind that in the least.

Jimmy had that look in his eye - bait and switch, and he always knows what button to press to start a fight. The bartender though, he’s built and he looks too “no homo” for that kind of bullshit. Especially with Jimmy being mostly drunk, he might not get out of it alright this time.

Dean steps out of the door just in time to catch Jimmy being flung against the wall next to it. His eye is already swelling up, but he has a savage grin on his face. Dean moves him forcefully back into the Roadhouse, and turns to look at the bartender, snarling in rage, who seems intent on turning either of them into so much paste.

“Woah, there, buddy. “ Dean puts himself in between them, tipsy but immovable. There’s something in his face that makes the bartender pause, panting out cold clouds of anger into the alleyway.

Dean nods slowly. “Yeah, you’re getting it. I know he can be a little fucker, but this is over now. The other room is filled with cops, and no one wants what will happen if I’m forced to punch your asshole face in. Count to one hundred, come on back in. Maybe finish your shift, maybe go see someone about that nose.”

He waits a moment, staring into into the guy’s eyes carefully. Satisfied, he goes back in after Jimmy, leaving the bartender to suck in lungfuls of freezing air. He walks back through the shitty hallway and into the main room. He doesn’t even stop, merely pausing when he collects his coat from his booth, ignoring Sam’s sour look and heading towards Jimmy. He’s leaning against the front door, looking outside. Waiting. They leave back into the freezing air.

They walk together without talking for a while at a brisk pace, letting the cold settle into their bones. Dean enjoys the silence, the cold, walking next to Jimmy. He knows what Sam thinks, and he’s not completely off base about it, but Jimmy is his oldest friend besides Charlie, and - well, it’s one of the only things that does count for something, honestly.

When the lights of the all night diner come into view, they both turn and make for it at the same time. They’re almost the only people in here at this time of the morning except for a few stragglers ending their nights, and some just beginning their mornings. Gladys, terrifying in her perfectly coiffed “red” hair, and drawn on eyebrows, brings them both coffee without asking, and then a few minutes later she brings Dean pancakes and Jimmy a grilled cheese sandwich, tapping her long pink nails against the bottom of the plates.

Dean waits until she’s gone and grabs the syrup. “Since we were kids. She still knows exactly what we want without asking.”

Jimmy snorts, taking a bite out of a fry and talking obnoxiously with his mouth full, “She’s one hundred and two years old, Dean, she’s seen it all.”

Dean smirks. The smell of the coffee is heaven itself, and he inhales it while he chews his syrup-drowned pancake wedge. Jimmy watches him quietly, the weird yellow light of the diner making the forming bruise on his eye an unnerving color.

“Dean,” Jimmy says finally, “you know, I’m not one to go against my self interests.”

Dean raises an eyebrow.

“Yeah, I know, you know that. Look, I…” He puts down his food and sighs. “I have inconvenient feelings for you, but what’s worse is that I love my brother more. So, I just can’t watch this anymore, and I can’t let you…”

Jimmy’s hand is a striking snake, grabbing Dean’s arm and forcing him to sit back down. “No. You’re not running now.”

Dean scowls at him, yanking his hand back, but he can’t dislodge Jimmy until he settles into the booth. He gets up and settles next to Dean, trapping him between himself and the window.

“When you both left me here… It sucked, Dean, and it was also the best thing. You sent me postcards and pictures, and I thought, well...” he traces a finger along Dean’s jaw, “ if they can be happy, there’s hope for me. I can be happy. And I was, you know, for a while. Even if I turned out to be the criminal, and beloved Cassie turned out to be merely a deviant, then a famous deviant.”

Jimmy leans in and plants a kiss on Dean’s ear, whispering, “And then, my love, you fucked it up.”

Dean clenches his jaw. “Fuck you, Jimmy.”

Jimmy laughs, that weird deranged laugh that always sent thrills down Dean’s spine. His eyes glitter, frost-blue. “Not today, Dean. Maybe never again.”

Dean wrenches himself as free as he can, pretzeling himself in the booth so he can see Jimmy’s whole face. “What the hell do you _want_?”

“I want you to go _get him_ , you asshole. That man will put Cassie into the ground, but not until he’s squeezed every bit of life from him, stolen his art and his money, and then broken his soul. Go and get him. Bring him here, to me. Bring him home again.”

Dean thunks his head against the window of the diner. “He won’t even _talk_ to me about it. He won’t talk about anything real with me. I watch him on _facebook_ for fuck’s sake. We share _memes._ He fell out of love with me years ago, and I just… I annoy him now. I’m lucky he’s my friend. Besides, he’s your brother, go get him yourself. I’ll drive. Hell, I’ll back you up, but it’s not me he wants to see right now.”

Jimmy looks at Dean for a minute with a strange expression on his face. “Dean Winchester, you are lucky you’re pretty. Let’s rewind several years, back when Sam and your father got hit by that truck. You came up here and Cas had to stay behind because his first really big show was coming up.”

Dean looks at his coffee cup instead of Jimmy’s eyes. “I couldn’t go. It sucked. And Dad… he said such horrible things about Cas. I would have left except for Sam. He was so hurt.”

He studies the swirls of cream congealing in the coffee, remembering the surgeries, the way they thought Sam might not walk again, every excruciating second of physical therapy. His baby brother in a wheelchair at his father’s funeral.

Bile rises in the back of his throat.

“I had to stay so long, and then Cas was bouncing from city to city, talking to Michael’s contacts. And he was always so tired, so confused. I knew something was going really wrong, but he wouldn’t tell me about it. Every time I called, Michael would make Cas get off the phone, and I tried to make him come home, but I was stuck. Paris might as well have been the moon, it’s so far away.

“We had six years, Jimmy, and then Michael comes along and fucks with his head.” He rubs his eyes with the back of his hand hard enough to see stars, trying to make the tears stay back.

“We… he gave me back my… Look, he stopped talking to me, and I don’t know what to say, but how did _I_ fuck it up? I don’t even know what I did. Michael is hurting Cas, and I can’t talk to him; he won’t let me in. I don’t know _what to do_. ” His heart bangs against his chest so hard it might burst. He might die. He’s going to die. He clenches his hand, staring at it, staring at the ring he still wears, next to the ring he gave Cas.

Jimmy takes Dean’s hand and turns it gently, tracing his fingers along the series of hideously twisted slashed scars around one long savage one going all the way down his arm. “When you were unconscious in the hospital with these, he came to see you. Stood there at the foot of your bed and wouldn’t move. I don’t think he ate or slept much for a few days. He and Sam had some choice words.”

Dean makes a wounded animal noise, pulling at his arm, but Jimmy won’t let it go. “He paid dearly for this weekend, Dean, for spending the night in your bed. I know he did, because he’s making the same mistakes our poor, stupid mother did. Right before you got your little arm decorations here, do you remember the phone call?”

Dean can only nod.

“Well,” Jimmy says, “he was at the end. The call was the last ditch effort to get away, to have you save him, and you _fucked it up_. When you got there, you let that shithead tell you to leave, you believed what he said, and you dragged your sorry ass back here and tried to die.

“He married Michael because Michael convinced him that he loves Cas. If I know his kind, and I do, once they got home everything escalated. He may have been controlling and hard to please before they tied the knot, but now? Cas is working himself to the bone for this upcoming show, and he’s so tired that he can barely string sentences together. So what happens if Castiel collapses?”

Jimmy grabs Dean by the shoulders and makes him look into his eyes. “Dean. _What happens if he dies_? Who controls the very lucrative estate of an eccentric artist? His husband.”

Dean feels as if he’s in freefall. “I have to get to him. Jimmy, get out of my fucking way. Why didn’t you talk about this sooner? Years, you fuck, it’s been _years_.”

Jimmy puts his palm on Dean’s chest. “Because to be honest, Cas wasn’t talking to me either. I mean, I saw him in your hospital room, but it wasn’t until the wedding that he let me in again. He’s called me a few times since. I had to make sure, Dean. I couldn’t go charging into his life without knowing for sure, so I hired a… No, stop trying to climb over me - Dean! Knock it off! You’re too drunk right now, sober up first.”

He locks eyes with Dean and slides the coffee over. Dean wraps his hands around the cup, letting the warmth seep into his fingers and staring at the liquid as if it held any answers. Finally drinking some, Dean’s thoughts race as he tries to think about anything else other than Castiel being in danger or trouble without him being nearby.  The horrible taste of the late night brew helps a little, as he absently wonders if they ever bought new beans or if they simply made new pots with the grounds of the old one. It seems to unlock the hold panic had on his brain, and he realises that he can breathe. He can do this.

“I can’t go alone,” Dean says eventually, “ and I can’t bring Sam. Sam will want to keep me from punching Michael. You’re coming with me, and once we bring Cas back, we can figure out how to annul the wedding or something so he can get his life back.”

Jimmy pulls his plate across the table from where he had been sitting and grabs a fry. “About that. Cas was really beside himself with the wedding and so I offered to mail the wedding certificate to be processed. I’m sorry to say that it found its way into my fireplace.”

Dean laughs, and it startles him. Something inside him held down by chains breaks free, and he laughs again, looking at Jimmy’s brilliant fucking face.

“We can save him,” Dean says slowly, unable to stop smiling. “We can really do this. If I can save you from a rampaging bartender, I can save the love of my life. Garth isn’t the only who can be a hero cop.”

Jimmy drapes his arm across the back of the booth, and Dean can see the gun in the holster under his coat. He sighs and rubs his forehead. Jimmy could have ended the fight with the bartender any time he wanted.

“You set me up. I am such a crappy cop,” he mutters.

Jimmy’s snake smile has a fond tilt to it. “Yeah, you are.”

They argue about how to do this in the diner the rest of the night. By the time dawn comes, Dean is sober and Gladys kicks them out of the diner, so they drive home and argue about it there. Dean makes them egg sandwiches and strong (actually good) coffee while they fight about it in the kitchen, and by the time he’s done cooking, Charlie is awake and arguing with Jimmy about it too. Dean makes another sandwich. Sam comes over halfway through and, rolling his eyes, points out a flaw in their plan. One of the flaws, of course, is that Dean cannot punch Michael without reason, but he’ll come along and make sure there’s someone else to witness… whatever it is that Dean needs a witness for. Dean makes him a sandwich too, thanking him with a choked up smile and a manly punch to the shoulder.

They talk about things until the afternoon when Sam insists that Dean sleep or he’s going to crash the car on the way and then no one will save Cas. Over his loud objections, he’s bullied upstairs by Charlie, who closes Dean’s creepy stair door in his face with a fake smile and a wave. Grumbling about his brother, Dean lies on the bed. He knows he won’t sleep, there’s just no way he can rest his mind. He’s still grumbling about it a minute later when he passes out.

**

 

Their living room was filled again, and though it might have made Dean anxious once, now he was the most at ease he’d ever been in his life. Sitting on the floor in front of the sofa, leaning against Cas’ legs, he watches his friends drink and laugh. There’s an old movie on in the background, but almost no one is paying attention to it. He turns his arm over and looks at the new tattoo on the inside wrist. It’s itchy and healing, and he loves every second of it. The winged heart with Castiel’s initials in it might be cheesy, but it marks him, and just the thought of that calms him down and centers him.

Castiel’s fingers card through Dean’s hair absently while he listens to Michael who is sitting on the arm of the couch, animatedly talking about art. They’d met him a year ago in Sweet Jenny’s art gallery and when she gave Castiel a weekend show, he became Castiel’s first real buyer. Dean hasn’t really ever gotten along with him because he’s a little too interested in staring at Cas’ ass when he’s not looking. He does, however, tolerate him because Cas enjoys talking about art with him, and anyway, Michael’s harmless. He has a serious boyfriend, some rich guy named Aaron, who spends a fortune on him. Dean can see Aaron over in the corner, nursing a drink. He’s not drinking it, just staring into with an exhausted look on his face, his curly dark hair falling across his eyes.

Jenny sits next to him daintily on the floor, a six-foot vision in sequins and feathers, sweeping away all thoughts of Michael with her perfumed presence. She hands Dean a champagne glass filled with something fizzy and pink. “My darling, the wedding was beautiful. One of these days the government will come to its senses and you can be legal.”

Dean sniffs the glass suspiciously, “If I drink this, am I going to wake up three days from now a state over with my underwear on my head?”

She laughs, delighted. “You are so suspicious. That happened one time, and I think the fact that you had four of these is more to blame.”

Dean grins around the glass, already having downed half of it. “I don’t care, anyway, it doesn’t matter to me.”

Jenny blinks her false silver eyelashes slowly. “Well, let me get you another one, green eyes. You’re so much fun after two.”

Laughing, he puts the glass on the floor next to him. “No, I mean, if we’re legal. It doesn’t matter. I have his heart, Jenny. I mean, I know it’s important to other people, but even if it happens, we don’t need to do it again. I have everything I need.”

She eyes the tattoo. “Oh, to be young again. Young and in love, and naive.” Her lipstick makes a perfect S.W.A.K. on the champagne glass as she downs it in one gulp, her adam’s apple bobbing hard. Jenny’s eyes have a hard glitter to them as she flicks her glance up to Michael and Cas, talking animatedly on the couch.

Dean stretches languidly. “What are you talking about, Jenny, you’re barely twenty.”

Jenny shrieks and pats his cheek. “Oh, what a gorgeous creature you are!”

She kisses his forehead, making him crinkle it and wipe at the lipstick ineffectually. “Now, I am off to see more interesting people, because I’m incredibly beautiful and important.”

Jenny gets up gracefully, and pauses for a moment, looking down at the tattoo and Dean’s upturned face. “In all honesty, Dean-my-bean, I am so happy for you both. Hold onto this for your life, and never let go.”

Before Dean can answer, she’s captured someone else’s arm, leading them off while laughing and talking, her eyes sparkling and sharp.

Running his fingers over the itchy healing tattoo, Dean smiles and closes his eyes, resting his head on Castiel’s knee.

Aaron is found floating in the Mississippi a month later, and the police can’t say for certain whether it’s suicide or not. Castiel and Dean are both sympathetic to a distraught Michael, and Dean thinks that it’s good that they can have each other for comfort when he is forced to go back home for a little while. He’s grateful that Michael can be there to help Cas with his new art show, the first one not hosted by friends.

**

 

In the end, it turns out that the best plan is almost no plan. They do agree that, one, Dean should not murder Michael, and that two, they need to get Castiel alone. When Dean wakes up from his nap, number three has been added: Dean is not to go alone.

He understands why, of course. Depending on what’s waiting for him, he will either hurt MIchael or he’ll fall for the ‘Castiel does not want to see you’ thing again. He still isn’t sure if Castiel actually said that and gave Michael the ring, or if he simply took the ring by force and did it on his own. Either way, he wishes that It doesn’t matter now. Castiel needs him, he can’t dwell.

Dean has a lot of time to reflect on it. Days, really. Since he refuses to fly, he’s driving. Jimmy and Charlie have decided to go ahead to get the lay of the land, and so they flew, but Sam insisted on taking the road trip with Dean. As much as he protested, he’s grateful for his brother’s presence.

Driving alone with him in the Impala is almost meditative; Sam talks about the calls he and Charlie had gone out on while Dean was in the hospital this last time, about the time he was in the theater club and lost his virginity backstage during _Grease._ Finding out that it was to Becky Rosen makes Dean laugh for a full minute before Sam whaps him upside the back of his head, but he still chuckles intermittently during the rest of the trip every time he thinks about it again.

“Dude,” he says, mouth full of pie, “didn’t she like, stalk you for an entire summer when you were twelve?”

They are at a rest stop along the way simply labeled ‘Stuckey’s’. It turns out to have passable BBQ and a weirdly varied amount of pie. They are less than half a day away from Cas, and Dean is filled with too much energy; it makes his skin crawl. His nerves are raw with it, and he takes the excess out with wheedling Sam. He’s already put itching powder in his underwear and short-sheeted his bed, but talking about Becky is getting on Sam’s last nerve, and Dean knows it.

Sam stabs at his salad (seriously, salad at a barbeque place?!) extra hard, glaring daggers at Dean. “I am so done talking about Becky.”

Dean grins obnoxiously around his chicken. Sam rolls his eyes. “Dean. I get that you’re nervous about Cas, but I am going to murder you and go save Cas by myself at this rate.”

Dean swallows, the food suddenly too big, too much, the sweetness of the sauce cloying and horrible. “Sam, I want to save him, but when we’re done bringing him home... “

Sam looks at him with his huge sappy eyes, tinged with sadness. “It has to be enough that you love him, I guess. You’ll know he’s safe, that Michael can’t hurt him again. But Dean, if he doesn’t want to be with you again…”

Sam fidgets with his fork. “Dean, please don’t…” His voice breaks.

Dean smiles at Sam tiredly. “You have nothing to worry about.”

He knows it sounds just as hollow to his brother as it does to him, but Dean thinks that maybe they have to believe in the promise to make it real.

That night in bed, he listens to Sam shifting in his own; he’s always too huge for every single hotel bed, but he always manages to make it work, curling up into a ball and sleeping motionless like a rock. It takes him a while to get to the proper rock-like position though. Just when Sam’s breathing starts to even out, Dean blurts out, “I have to tell you something.”

He can hear Sam start and flail a second before sighing, “Dean, what?”

“I went more than once. To Castiel’s place. To all of them, actually. I chickened out a couple of times, and I actually talked to Cas a few of them. He always wanted to come home... and then he never did. Michael would come back, or he’d go back to get something, and then I ended up having to come home alone. The last place, though... it was like a fortress and I never got close enough to him. They were on the lookout for me and I got kicked out. I was nearly arrested, and then Michael told me that Cas was tired of having a stalker, and that he was grateful for my friendship but I should stop coming by.

“I feel like… Sam, I feel like I failed him. Like I should’ve beat Michael and brought Cas back over my shoulder or something. I left him with a predator because I was too… weak to fight for him.” He angrily scrapes at the tears on his cheeks.

Sam sighs in the dark. “Dean, I can’t tell you how to feel, but you just didn’t realize what was going on. Cas doesn’t seem like the kind of person to let that happen to him, and you could only go on what you saw. I know your instincts told you it was wrong, but I’m not sure what else you could have done except be the neanderthal you describe. And then you wouldn’t have been better than Michael. You’re not stupid because you weren’t clairvoyant, and you’re doing what you can now. We’ll get him back, D. He will be safe. Now shut up, you girl, I’m trying to sleep.”

Dean nods, running his hands through his hair and scrubbing them over his face. “Goodnight. Bitch.”

Sam chuckles sleepily in the dark. “Jerk.”

Dean eventually sleeps, only to dream about searching through a maze of funhouse mirrors for Cas who is crying. Crying, but never found.

++

The next morning finds the entire group crammed into the Impala, not so subtly sitting across from Castiel and Michael’s snazzy high rise condo. It’s a Saturday, and this is apparently when the hipsters visit farmer’s markets, watch independent movies, or go wax their vintage mustaches at Starbucks or whatever. Most of them walk, too, which makes the giant black gas guzzling car stick out like a sore thumb. No one inside the car seems to care.

“Okay,” Charlie says, way too cheerfully for this time of day, “we’re going to want to go around the corner in about a half hour. Ernest the doorman really likes redheads, so we’ve been hanging out for a few minutes a day ever since he accidentally smacked into me and made me drop my shopping bags. Michael usually goes out on Saturday mornings for about an hour and a half to use the gym. Castiel is always inside. When he found out I was an art fan, he was more than happy to brag about how Castiel had just sold a sculpture to a ‘huge star’. Michael is apparently over the moon about it.”

Her tone falters as she continues, “Ernest says Cas never leaves by himself. Usually on Saturdays, Michael’s assistant comes to talk about business with Castiel or whatever, but it sure sounds like they’re trading off, cause he leaves soon after Michael comes back. You’ll have a few minutes to get in there.”

Jimmy puts his hand on Dean’s shoulder from the back seat. “That’s where I come in. Ernest will be too distracted to realize he didn’t see Castiel leave. I’ll get you in the front door, but you’re on your own with getting Cas to open the door. I’ll keep watch from the hall.”

Sam says, “I’ll have the car. After I drive around the block, I’ll keep watch out here, and tell you when Michael is home. I’m hoping at that point it won’t matter if he sees me. If you come back out with Cas early, no problem, we just drive off… but if he comes home and you’re not back out, I’m following. If you need help, call.”

Jimmy chimes in, “And I’ll be up there, too! He’s not getting the drop on you. You won’t be alone, Dean.”

Dean feels as if he might cry or throw up or both, and just nods. “You guys, I don’t know how to thank you.”

Charlie and Sam smirk at each other and then at Dean.

“We’ll think of something,” Charlie says.

“Time’s up,” Jimmy says quietly, drawing their attention to the small analog clock on his phone, and Sam drives around the corner.

They cut it almost too close; they can see Michael walking away from them down the street when they come back, but he doesn’t turn around, so they park the car. Charlie gets out first and they watch her flirt with Ernest for a few minutes before Jimmy and Dean get out of the car.

Jimmy slings his arm through Dean’s, and they go across the street and into the building. Ernest sees Jimmy out of the corner of his eye and clearly marks him as Castiel without thinking, because at that moment Charlie’s dropped something on the ground, and is bending over to pick it up with a bubbleheaded laugh.

The elevator ride is tense. Jimmy keeps staring at Dean weirdly until he snaps, “ Jimmy, what?”

He ficks his eyes up at the numbers as they light up, and licks his lips. “There’s something I didn’t finish telling you. I hired a detective to look into Michael. When I read the report, the thing that stood out more than anything else was that most of his former boyfriends ended up dead.”

The elevator opens up onto Castiel’s floor. It isn’t quite a penthouse, but it’s close. The floor is beautiful parquet wood, and the lighting is subtle and calm. They step out into the quiet, facing each other.

“Jimmy,” Dean starts, but he’s shushed.

“No, listen now. I should have told you before, but I realized you’d rush here without help or a plan, and I knew you’d have taken your gun. So, just take a minute now and listen, will you? All of Michael’s former lovers have all been found in weird circumstances, and almost all of them have been ruled suicides. All except for…”

“Aaron,” Dean breathes. His skin crawls.

“Yes.” Jimmy grabs his shoulder. “As best I can figure, something made him move faster with Aaron than anyone else. Maybe he was getting suspicious, maybe he was truly into Cas. He’s also kept Cas around longer, but I don’t know _why_. It’s possible that he enjoys having him, or maybe he just figured it was a bigger payout like this than taking everything he could and running. He thinks he’s married, and he has a hold on Cas, so he can keep it going longer? I don’t know, but... Cas could be in really bad shape. The last phone call I got from him set me on this path. I think he found out, and I haven’t been able to get ahold of him. So just be prepared.”

Dean takes a deep breath -- in and then out again. He can’t panic now because Cas could be in deep shit just down that hallway. He moves down the hallway towards the door. This walk, he’s made before. The last time he came down here, he made it all the way to the threshold before Michael caught up to him. He clenches his fist around Castiel’s ring. Jimmy stands next to the door and nods.

“I’ll get rid of the assistant, or Michael, if it comes to that.” Jimmy shows him the shoulder holster under his jacket.

“Wait, I can’t have my gun, but Sam totes that thing in our car all the way here for you?” Dean frowns at Jimmy’s grin. “You are a cock. Fine, whatever.”

He ignores Jimmy now and knocks on the door, frowning at the fact that it’s unlocked. He quietly and carefully moves inside, every instinct blaring warning bells at him as he does. He checks every corner though the front hallway and (truly gorgeous) living room, into another hallway. Office, empty. Guest bedroom, empty. Strangely neat art studio, empty. Bathroom, empty. There’s one door at the end of the hall, and it’s open too. He can hear water running in a bathtub. He carefully pushes the door open, corner clear. Behind the door, clear.

The bedroom is massive, with an equally large four poster bed dominating most of it, pretentious silk sheets rumpled and askew. The room is freezing. Open french doors lead to a balcony with large leafy fake plants. The water running sound is coming from the bathroom attached, and the door is slightly ajar, wisps of steam floating into the main room. Dean swallows hard. Carefully, willing his hands not to shake, trying to breathe, he pushes the door in so he can see the room. Images of Cas dead in the bathtub swim behind his eyes, and for a moment, he can see it, clear as day; then the steam clears, and this room too is empty.

He’s staring at it dumbly when he hears a low chuckle behind him. He turns to find Castiel leaning against the open door-jamb to the balcony. He’s completely naked except for a long silk kimono style robe, which is open.

He takes a long swig from a bottle of wine he has in one hand. “Not a great cop, are you? It’s not like I was hiding. Your car is the opposite of subtle, Dean, I can see it from up here. Also, Charlie seducing poor Ernest… he’ll be heartbroken, I’m sure. I assume Sam is the wheel-man for this caper?”

He’s not quite drunk, but he’s not sober either. For the first time in years, Dean sees him, really _sees_ _him_ and not the affected persona. He’s skinny, but he hasn’t bothered to run or work out, leaving him frail instead of trim. He has circles under his eyes, and his skin is… not a great color.

“Cas,” he says carefully, “it’s freezing out. Why not close the door, and c’mon inside. Maybe get dressed in something warm.”

Cas shakes his head, weaving his way into the room. “Can’t. The door’s locked. Anyway, don’t you want me like this?” He flounces onto the bed, propping himself up against some of the pillows so he can sit up and drink, not bothering to cover himself with anything, rather displaying himself instead, one leg crooked so Dean can see everything.

Grinding his teeth, Dean ignores that. “What do you mean, the door’s locked? It was open when we got here.”

Cas indicates the closet door with his chin.

He looks, and his vision swims. The door is locked. There’s no dresser in this room either, he belatedly realizes. Cas has nothing to wear. No wonder the door out isn’t locked, he literally can’t leave without looking like he’s lost it, or freezing to death trying to get anywhere without money. He looks carefully around him. There’s no phone. No cell phone. No computer. He rifles through his memory and, no. None in the other rooms either, except the office. He bets there’s a password on the computer in there, though.

He looks back at Cas, who is watching him, his eyes dulled by wine, but the mind behind them just as sharp as ever. “Michael has a new assistant,” he says quietly, “and he’s kind of a brute. You should go before he gets here.”

Dean comes around the bed. Cas passively watches as Dean takes the robe and wraps it around him, then shifts him a little so he can sit. Dean reaches out and takes the bottle from him and puts it on the bedside table, absently noting the lack of a clock there.

“Cas, come back with me.” He wants to reach out and touch Castiel’s face, but instead he keeps his hands folded in his lap, twisting over each other.

Cas shakes his head and looks out the window. “Can’t.”

Dean clenches his hands. “Cas, _please,_ come back with me.”

Castiel is silent for a long time. When he speaks, his voice drips with scorn. “Dean, go away. You’re stuck on some childish fantasy from high school. Go marry that fucking _fireman_ and leave us alone.”

Dean whispers, “Cas, please,” and his voice breaks.

Cas laughs; it’s an awful parody of his real laugh. He sounds like Jimmy, like Jimmy when he’d been pushed too far by some of Gordon’s asshole friends, when he finally knew he could kill someone, but only stopped because his brother had been watching. It is wrong coming from Cas and Dean shudders.

“ _Cas, please,_ ” Cas mocks, “Please what? You want to come here in your stupid black car and sweep me up and take me away from my home? No, fuck you. Go away. I’m _married_. You’re nothing to me, and I’m happy here. You can tell my fucking brother to leave me alone too, while you’re at it. I don’t need any of you.”

He falls silent, staring out the window with a stubborn set to his chin. Dean can’t make any sounds come out of his own mouth, so they sit there together. The only sound in the room is the sound of the water in the tub spilling out onto the floor of the bathroom. Mechanically, Dean gets up and goes in to turn it off, his body a million light years away. When he comes back, Cas has moved and is sitting on the end of the bed watching for him. Their eyes lock, and air comes rushing back into his lungs as a realization hits him. Cas sees it and flinches, looking away. At the closet.

Dean looks at it then, too, a slow smile breaking over his face as he rummages in his pocket for his phone. “You almost had me,” he says as he dials in Jimmy’s number. He could just poke his head into the hallway, but he’s afraid that Cas will disappear like a dream if he leaves.

A few minutes later, he and Jimmy are both looking at the lock while Cas paces in a panic behind them.

“Well,” Jimmy whistles through his teeth, ignoring his brother’s distress. He’d ignored the way his brother looked too, a tense jaw clench as the only thing giving himself away, “this lock is no joke.”

Dean looks sideways at Castiel, who shrugs with a faintly pleased look on his face and a duck of the head. Despite himself, Dean can feel a smile spread. “He picked it.”

They both look at Cas, who runs his hand through his already disheveled hair, snorting and rolling his eyes.

“Over and over. He kept getting jokes of a lock, and it was not really that hard. He got so angry….” Castiel falters, clears his throat. “Until he got that, and I didn’t have any sculpting tools here any longer. So.” Cas crosses his arms protectively over his chest and looks at the floor.

Jimmy pulls a small flat cloth toolkit from his inside pocket and hands it to Dean. Dean looks at it and offers it to Cas.

Cas stares at it for long enough that Dean is suddenly afraid that it actually _is_ too late, that he can’t come back from whatever it is Michael has over him now. Just as Dean is about to close his fingers over it, Cas grabs at it like a striking cat, snatching it delicately from his hand.

“You’re not leaving, are you,” Cas says flatly, eyes on the tools. Jimmy’s snort makes him wince. He opens his mouth to try to protest again, but ends up just looking at the lockpick set in his hand again, hefting it as if it feels heavy.

Dean watches Cas sink down to his knees so he’s eye level with the lock and selects some tools with shaking hands. His whole body is shaking; Dean shuts the window, and then slips his coat off, draping it around Cas’ shoulders. Cas shudders, twisting his face into the collar and inhaling. After a second, he slips his arms into it, his body relaxing as if he’d been dipped into a hot bath. When he takes up the picks again, he’s calmer. With a steady hand and a resigned face, he picks the lock on the cabinet.

The closet is an over indulgently huge thing, spanning back into what may have once been another guest room. There are suits here, Michael’s and Castiel’s, carefully tailored. A built in dresser contains the less formal clothing. There are also several expensive looking vintage trunks here, and a suitcase that Dean recognizes with a startled jolt as the battered thing Cas would lug around with him everywhere a lifetime ago.

Cas stands outside the doors in the bedroom, looking into the closet with a face like a closed mask, and refuses to come in. Dean will have to get him clothing. He hunts through everything, and then slowly pulls out clothing he knows must be ones Castiel has chosen instead of ones Michael made him get; hilarious boxers shoved underneath more fashionable underwear, a t-shirt with an obscure art joke on it, similarly hidden under other more refined clothing. Worn jeans that he recognizes. There are a few cultured looking shoes here, but he passes them over for the pair of combat books that he sees hiding behind Castiel’s suitcase. He takes that too, hauling everything into the bedroom and piling it on the ridiculous bed.

Castiel looks at the pile of clothing, his eyes filled with tears. Silently and carefully, he takes Dean’s coat off, and then lets the kimono fall to the floor. Dean turns around and eyes the closet as Cas gets dressed. Jimmy goes into the hallway, within shouting distance, watching for the overdue assistant.

What was Castiel looking at? He surveys the place carefully, and his eyes fall on the biggest trunk. Something in that trunk scared him enough to keep him from getting near it.

“Dean...” The desperation in Castiel’s voice makes him pause on his way back into the closet. “Don’t. You can’t unsee it. Just don’t. I’ll come with you.”

Dean considers it for a moment, but…”I might not be a fantastic cop where your brother is concerned, Cas, but something tells me that if I ignore whatever is in those trunks, it would be one of the worst mistakes of my life.”

Cas comes up behind him and touches his arm. “Don’t waste time searching in there. There will be plenty to see, but what you want is in the scrapbook. The rest of it is… it’s… chains. The rest are chains.”

He can hear Jimmy growl from the hallway, “Whatever the fuck you’re doing, please hurry. I’m getting a bad feeling about this missing asshole now.”

Dean appreciates that, but the gripping feeling that he can’t hurry or he’ll miss something makes him take his time. The trunk is filled with memorabilia. Clips of hair bound together with letters. Cards. Small love tokens from artists. Signed books. Pictures of Michael with various famous artists, clothing designers, authors. Underneath everything he can see what Castiel told him to look for: an enormous black scrapbook.

He means to only flip through it now and examine it later, but he ends up staring at it. Fastidiously placed into each section are pictures of smiling men, clearly looking into the camera for someone they adore and trust. The opposite pages are filled with pictures of the same men, but dead. The pictures have been taken from many angles. Each one has a name attached. Page after page after page. There are decorations: stickers, love notes, theater tickets. He recognizes Aaron on the second to last page, the picture of him is not of him in the river though, it’s of him staring lifelessly at the ceiling in a bathtub filled with weirdly brackish water. The last section has a page filled with smiling pictures of Castiel surrounding the official marriage portrait taken at their wedding. He snaps the book shut hard and surges to his feet angrily, but then pauses. The inside of the trunk is too small for the outside.

Cas says, “Dean, no, that’s it, just.. just come out now.” He’s sitting on the bed, dressed, wrapped again in Dean’s coat, small and vulnerable and desperate.

Dean knows with utter certainty he has to look in the rest of the trunk, even if he has to look at chains. He has to see all of it, because there’s something missing about all of this, something he can’t put his finger on. He kneels back down and examines it, carefully finding the edge of the false bottom and lifting it out.

Cas makes a wounded animal noise, and slides off the bed onto the floor, covering his face.

“Oh,” Dean says quietly. Everything begins to slot into place. “Chains.”

Whereas everything else in the house is precise to the point of fussiness, the bottom of the trunk is filled with pictures, messily dumped into a frantic pile. Pictures of Dean. Sam, Jimmy, even Charlie. As he lifts a few out, he can see that they’re doing everyday things. He realizes that they’re in a kind of strata, years old pictures under newer ones. Some of them have been mutilated with a savage ferocity, mostly his own face being slashed with something sharp or colored over with a red sharpie.

Dean sits back on his heels and looks over at the miserable pile of Cas sitting on the floor next to the bed, and back at the pictures. He picks up a particularly savage picture of himself and exhales through his nose hard. Then he gets back on the phone.

A few minutes later, Sam is looking down at the trunk , a complicated set of emotions going over his face. Charlie sits with Cas out in the living room, Jimmy and his gun with them, the front door locked.

“The assistant hasn’t made it back,” Dean supplies while Sam processes everything. “I think Michael made us and skipped town.”

Sam nods absently, running one hand through his hair. “If we bring this to the cops, Cas has to go through all this crap again. But, I mean, I think he really killed those men, Dean. If we let him go, he’ll do it again. He could come after Cas.”

“I don’t think it’s up to us,” Dean decides. “Let’s ask Cas.”

“I want to go home,” Cas startles them both, standing in the doorway. “Take that trunk, and the one next to it. But please, I can’t stay here anymore. Take me home.”

So they take him home.

 

***

 

“You wounded me, Castiel.” Michael’s voice is like honey on the other end of the line, causing Cas to shudder. “Leaving with that buffoon and your brother? You know how I feel about disloyalty.”

“Please, Michael,” Castiel begs, “I can’t stand it here. This has been the worst month in my life. I don’t want him any more, and he can’t get it through his head! No one knows what I want but you. I can’t live without you. I stole your book from him, and I’ve hidden it. Please come and get me.” Castiel takes  in a shuddering breath, raw emotion dripping from every word. “I can’t create without you. You’re my muse, I’m lost without you.”

Michael’s sounds pleased, practically purring into the phone. “Well, as it happens, I am an hour outside your town. Get a room in that horrible motel just on the edge of town, and I will see you there around midnight. This is your last chance, Castiel. You have a lot to make up for.”

Castiel pants with relief. “Yes, Michael. I will be there, I promise. Thank you, _thank you_.”

MIchael chuckles indulgently and hangs up the phone.

At eleven thirty, Castiel sits alone in a room at the SeaScape hotel, anxiously holding a book and watching the clock.

At twelve o’clock, he lets Michael in.

At twelve-oh-one, he lets the police in too.

He smiles right into Michael’s face as Garth handcuffs him, waves goodbye to him as he’s driven off into the night. Dean falls in behind him to watch him go.

“What an asshole,” he muses.

Castiel snorts. “Yeah, fuck that guy.”

Dean shakes his head. “Not with someone else’s dick. No thank you.”

 

+++

 

The papers are covered with pictures of Garth hustling Michael into the SUV.

 **_Serial killer Michael Milton found GUILTY_ ** , It says cheerfully. The article goes on to talk about Garth arresting him in a daring sting operation with the brave cooperation of his last victim to be. There’s a picture of Castiel being escorted into and out of the courtroom by Jimmy on one side and Dean on the other.

Dean buys every copy he can and wraps Garth’s desk and his computer up in it.

It’s the culmination of an entire year. When they got home, Cas wouldn’t rest until they woke up Jody and showed her everything, including the second trunk, which was even worse. Then, because it looked like Michael truly was a serial killer, they reached out to the FBI.

Cas told his story over and over, from investigator to lawyer, to judge to jury. Dean is somewhere in the room for all of it; always where Castiel can see him. The FBI try to kick him out, but Castiel simply stops talking, and Dean is back within an hour.

The story is worse than Dean had imagined.

Once Cas found the trunks, Michael told him everything. In detail. Sam and Charlie worry about the toll the story of Castiel’s life with Michael takes on him, but he doesn’t waver, eyes locked with Cas’ every time. The only part that gets deep under his skin is when he talks about Michael threatening to kill Dean to keep him under control. Eventually they learn that Michael has more victims than the scrapbook, and the papers linger over that for a long time.

Every time Castiel is needed officially, Dean brings him, sits quietly in the background so that Cas can see him, and brings him back to Jimmy’s place. At first they do it in supremely awkward silence, and then one of them cracks a joke about something dumb, and then they’re laughing. They start talking after that.

They don’t talk about anything important, but to Dean, it’s everything. Mostly they talk about Dean and his life, carefully skirting painful subjects, which leaves them with stupid stories about Garth and how Sam is a giant girl. The cold turns to blustery, and then to hot, and Dean invites Cas to his fourth of July party. Then, because he comes, he invites Cas to movie night, then game night.

Benny breaks up with him, despite his objections that he and Cas aren’t together again, but Benny won’t hear anything else. It was pleasant enough, Dean reflects later, if kind of sad. He can’t really blame Benny either; Cas is a lot to compete with. Even if there’s no reason to compete. They hang out together almost all the time, but neither of them makes any move past friendship. Dean is pretty sure Cas is over it. It’s okay, Dean tells himself, he’s here, he’s alive, he’s well. Dean can’t ask for more.

He tries not to want more.

The trial means that Cas has to see Michael. Dean makes sure that he’s sitting someplace in the room where Cas can see him when he testifies. They never break gaze once, and Michael tries to spit on him as he walks past, in and out of the courtroom. Cas slips his arm around Dean’s waist as they leave, and Dean, caught unprepared, slips his arm around Cas without overthinking it. That night Dean dreams of sleeping in the Impala with Castiel snug against him, listening to the sounds of a thunderstorm rage around them.

Guilty. Guilty on all charges, life forever in jail, _guilty_. Dean wants to throw a party, but Sam is pretty sure that would be in poor taste. So Dean refrains.

Jimmy does it instead.

Cas makes Dean bring him to it, which is a mistake. He gets so drunk that he can’t stand, and Jimmy makes Dean put him to bed. Cas tries to drag Dean into bed with him, eyes dark and simmering. Dean makes out with him for a few minutes before practically injuring himself in his haste to flee, hoping he won’t remember it in the morning.  Not only does Cas remember it, but he seems really angry, and Dean thinks he has good reason to be. Michael probably took advantage of him like that all the time. He hopes Cas can forgive him. Jimmy meets him for coffee to talk about it, and ends up staring at him and shaking his head, muttering something about being a clueless moron. He leaves, slapping Dean on the head on the way out.

A few weeks later, after Cas still refuses to speak to him, Dean gets Jimmy to take Cas to the local park and ‘bumps’ into them while jogging. He’s wearing the wrong shoes and he’s overdressed for it, wearing a heavy coat against the cold fall wind. It goads Cas into giving him a lecture. Dean counters with a challenge: If you’re so smart, you come tomorrow and show me. So he does.

Cas is winded early, and has to be helped, shaking, home. But he comes the next day. And the next. Soon it becomes their thing, jogging in the park every morning at stupid-o’clock. Dean drops five pounds and finds that he can suddenly sleep very well at night. Cas starts eating again.

When cold weather hits, two years after Cas has come home, they sign up for time at the new indoor track at the high school, showing up before the kids are even thinking about rolling out of bed. It’s surreal, being back there with Cas, and they both feel it. Cas pushes them harder, and then it’s impossible to feel anything until they’re done, gasping and sweating, collapsing onto a bench. Dean finds it painfully arousing to see him like that, smiling and drenched and exhausted. What’s more, Cas _knows_ , raising an eyebrow with a quick smirk. Every time. Dean prays for spring and the easier pace they can set outside where nothing reminds them of anything else.

Before long, though, is the Christmas party. Dean skipped it the year after the trial, and never heard the end of it from everyone, including Cas. Truthfully, he hadn’t felt like celebrating the holiday at all, and had to be dragged through it like a ghost, eyes on Cas the entire time. In August this year, though, Charlie put her foot down, so they started planning.

+++

“Three… two… one!” The crowd behind him chants and Dean dramatically presses the button on his iPad. Lights and music spring to life. When he started planning it, Cas had picked up his iPad one day when he was over. Trips to come and hang out with no manufactured reasons were getting more frequent. Dean had opened his mouth to protest, but had liked the proprietary way Cas picked up the device and started looking through it, so he just waited. Cas suggested a change, and then Dean had countered, and they were off.

The result was stunning. Most years the displays were kitschy, silly holiday music combined with fun blinking lights, but this year it was _beautiful_ : archways over the path with twinkling, hanging snowflakes made of light, sculptural trees of wire and green chasing red chasing blue in time with the music. Wire sculptures of ballet dancers and nutcrackers, delicately poised, and with the perfect classical Christmas music made it seem peaceful and sweet instead of a circus. There was a collective quiet gasp and then applause. Charlie, dressed as punk Elsa, stands in the doorway, welcoming everyone with wine and pie.

The party itself isn’t as quiet and sweet as the display outside. Dean’s gone to great lengths to lubricate and feed people into a merry mood, and the music is, as always, danceable but ignorable. He and Cas hand out drinks and play tipsy charades in the game room, and then Dean trounces all comers in Mario Kart with Cas sitting on the arm of his chair the entire time, one hand possessively on the back of his neck.

 _Rhonda Hurley has a big mouth,_ Dean thinks sourly. Her shrill laugh as she drunkenly falls all over Charlie in the hall outside the game room, spears through his head and makes it pound relentlessly against his skull.

“I’m so glad to see then _together again_ ,” she tries to whisper, but it just comes out louder than regular talking somehow. “They were such a _great couple!!”_

Charlie hustles her by the room as fast as she can, but Dean is nauseous now. He gets up and flings the controller down onto the chair. Cas is watching him carefully, his eyes hooded. He tries not to run out of the room, but it’s a close thing.

He isn’t sure where he’s going, really, but he has to get there urgently. Air. He needs air. He stumbles through the thick crowd, hating every single person, in his quest to just breathe. Suddenly the cloying closeness of the crowd parts and he’s stumbled into the front yard, immediately wincing at the horrible brightness and the music. He fumbles with his phone, managing to make the music stop, and most of the lights, except the twinkling archway above the path.

He crouches there, sucking in lungfuls of air and turning them into sobs. Great, wracking sobs that seem to have no end as he pours out his grief into the frigid night. Eventually the sobs turn into shuddering breath, and he notices the hand on his back that’s gently rubbing in circles. Has been, in fact, for quite some time.

“I’m sorry,” Cas whispers.

Dean’s laugh has a hysterical edge. “You’re sorry? You lived with a madman for years, and _you’re sorry?_ ”

Cas hooks a gentle finger under his chin and turns it to look at him. “He wasn’t great, and now that I have some perspective, I can see how he kept me with him for so long. But he wasn’t scary until the last year. That’s not your fault, by the way.”

Dean snorts, and Cas rolls his eyes. “Martyr.”

There’s a moment of quiet, and then Cas says, “There is one thing that you did that I am angry about, Mr. Winchester.”

 _Oh god, the tone in his voice._ It sends a thrill up his body that he’s unprepared to stifle, and Dean whimpers.

Cas takes Dean’s arm and traces the scars. “You took it off. I went to great lengths to put that tattoo there in the first place.” His eyes glitter.

Dean manages, “I know. I was…” He’s silenced by a fingertip against his lips.

Cas stands, bringing Dean up with him. “Dean, everything was horribly and deeply fucked up for a long time, but all I want right now is to move forward.”

Dean mumbles, “I know. I don’t want to stand in your way, and I’ve tried to back off, I’m sorry, Cas.”

Castiel stares at him. “I’m not sure you understand, you beautiful idiot. I’ve been throwing myself at you for the last two years.” Cas waits a moment, watches Dean blink, then shakes his head. “Dean, you’re the love of my life, please stop sacrificing yourself for what you think I want.”

Dean’s throat constricts. He is unable to move, so Castiel does, pulling him into a kiss with a steady hand on the back of Dean’s neck. It feels like a free-fall; thrilling and dangerous, completely right.

Music filters out into the front yard from the open door, filling the air with nostalgia. Dean whispers, “Is that fucking ‘Wonderwall’?”

Castiel pulls back to look at him. His eyes are bright and glitter in the light. “Dean, do you want to dance?”

Dean’s heart pounds in his chest, but he doesn’t feel for once like he’s going to die. In fact, he can’t remember when he last felt so intensely alive. He takes Castiel’s offered hand, and slips his arm around his waist.

“Dean,” Castiel whispers into the crook of his neck, “don’t waste this chance”

They sway together under the arch as a light snow begins to fall, the twinkling lights making the snowflakes sparkle silver. Dean can feel Castiel’s steady heartbeat against his own. Castiel looks up at him, snow catching in his eyelashes. Dean’s breath hitches in his throat as Cas’ hands slide up to cup Dean’s  jaw, leaning in to kiss him. Dean closes his eyes, surrendering to the fierce claim.

He remembers the first time, Cas’ lips soft and warm against his own, just as he remembers the last. He knows he will never waste another moment again. The world fades around them as they embrace, hearts beating as one.


End file.
